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HISTORY OF 

TULARE and KINGS COUNTIES 

CALIFORNIA 



WITH 



Biographical SJ^etches 



OP 



The Leading Men and Women of the Counties Who Have Been Identified 

With Their Growth and Development From the 

Early 'Days to the Present 



^ 



HISTORY BY 

EUGENE L. MENEFEE 

AND 

FRED A. DODGE 



ILLUSTRATED 
COMPLETE IN ONE VOLUME 



HISTORIC RECORD COMPANY 

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 
[1913] 



•IT 1^5 



G 



A 



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Lf 30 



CONTENTS ^ 



CHAPTER I. 

Introductory to History of Tulare County 5 

Earliest White Comers to County Bore Name of Smith — Indian Records 
of Prior Inhabitants — The Year 1849 Brings Changes — First Real Settler 
Locates in 1850 — Other Settlers Follow — Rescue of the Wingfields — 
Election of Officers — Derivation of Name Visalia — Survey for Railroad 
in 1853. 

CHAPTER II. 

Indian War op 1856 -ry. 20 

Indians a Factor in Growth of Settlement — Interesting Accounts by 
Stephen Barton — Cattle Stealing the Source of Trouble — ^Tocsin of War 
Continues to Sound — War Is Waged Between Whites and Indians — 
Indian Troubles in Owens River District — Hospital Rock. 

CHAPTER III. 

The Effect of the Civil War on Tulare County 28 

Southerners Constitute Larger Part of Tulare's Population — Troops 
Sent to Visalia — Whiskey Plays a Part in the Difficulties — Union Meet- 
ing Held — Southern Sympathizers Meet — Killing of Vogle — Killing of 
Stroble — Rowley Affair — Destruction of Newspaper Plant. 

CHAPTER IV. 

Visalia 34 

Impress of the Vise Family on the Little Settlement — Settlers Who Fol- 
lowed — Early Newspapers — View of the Town in Early Days — First 
Fireworks — Gas Works and Electric Plant Established — City Hall 
Erected — Effect of the Wyllie Local Option Law — Visalia of Today. 

CHAPTER V. 

Tulare County's Citrus Fruit 41 

Eastern Slope of the County Almost Continuous Orange Grove — First 
Orange Tree Planted in 1860 — Growth of the Industry — County's Fruits 
Displayed at St. Louis Fair — Tulare County Ranks Fifth in Point of 
Citrus Production in State — County's Present Area. 

CHAPTER VI. 

The General Rodeo 46 

Cattle Raising in the Early Days — Act of Legislature of 1851 — White 
River Incident — Interest in Mining Superseded by Cattle Raising — "No- 
Pence" Law. 

CHAPTER VII. 

Exeter and Other Towns 49 

Railroad Reaches Exeter in 1888 — Pacific Improvement Company — 
Exeter's Steady Progress — Monson — Kaweah — North Tule — Pixley — 
Tipton — Alila — Poplar — Frazier — Woodville — Strathmore — Eshom 
Valley — Alpaugh — Tagus — Goshen — Paige — Angiola — Yettem — Piano 
— Three Rivers — Springville — Mineral King — Traver — Hockett Meadows 
— Redbanks — White River — Giant Forest — Orosi — Naranjo — Monson — 
Oriole Lodge — Venice — Klink — Waukena — Woodlake — California Hot 
Springs — Terra Bella — Ducor and Richgrove — Farmersville — Camp Nel- 
son — Camp Badger — Auckland — Kaweah Station. 



V i CONTENTS 

CHAPTER VIII. 

PORTERVILLE AND OthER TowxS 75 

Located on the old immigrant road — J. B. Hockett, a camper of '49 — 
Town named for Royal Porter Putnam — Cattle raising chief occupation 
Coming of railroad in 1888 — Porterville becomes a town of the sixth 
class in 1902 — Schools — Water system — Packing houses — Library — 
Churches — Banks — Newspapers — Fraternal Lodges — Dinuba — Tulare — 
Lemon Cove — Sultana — Lindsay. 

CHAPTER IX. 

Anecdotes 88 

Adventures with Indians — Poindexter nuptials — Fiddling from Donkey's 
back — The McCrory Episode — Morris-Shannon affray — Stapleford-Dep- 
uty affair — James M'Kinney's High Life — The Magana Butchery — Mis- 
cellaneous Items — Crossing Streams in the '50s — County Scrip and Gold 
Dust — An Indian Runner — Visalia's First Business Directory — Second 
Courthouse — Cemeteries — Visalia's Title — Politics — Arrival of the Tele- 
graph — A Vigorous Protest — A Novel Engine — Flood Times — The Lost 
Mine — Some Statistics of 1870 — Mankins' Party Arrival — No Fence 
Law — As Seen by Fremont. 

CHAPTER X. 

The Mussel Slough War 110 

Early Settlers in the Mussel Slough Country — Land League's Fight 
With the Railroad. 

CHAPTER XI. 
The Kaweah Colony 113 

One of the Greatest Community Enterprises Ever Inaugurated in the 
United States — Its Chief Promoters. 

CHAPTER XII. 

The Aborigines 118 

Traditions — Creation Myth of the Yokuts — Diet — Indian Weapons — 
The Medicine Man — Gathering Salt — Capturing Wild Pigeons — Novel 
Fishing — Hunting Deer — Charming a Squirrel — Catching Ducks. 

CHAPTER XIII. 

National Parks, 123 

General Grant Park — Sequoia National Park — Mountain Trails — County 
Roads During the Late '50s. 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Development of Industries 130 

Electric Power — Irrigation — Alta District — Tulare Irrigation District — 
Artesian and Other Wells — Dairying Industry — Deciduous Fruit — The 
' Watermelon. 

CHAPTER XV. 

The Railroad Dream 144 

Bidding for the Railroad — The Visalia and Tulare Railroad — East Side 
Railroad — Coming of the Santa Fe — The Visalia Electric — The Por- 
terville NorthEastern. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Great Train Robberies 148 

First of Five Robberies Occurs at Pixley — The Dalton Gang — The CoUis 
Robbery — The Evans and Sontag Tragedies. 



CONTENTS V i i 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Churches, Schools, Population 154 

The South Methodist — Baptist — Sunday Schools — Presbyterian — Luth- 
eran — Episcopal — Catholic — Methodist Episcopal — Christian — Training 
of the Young — Population — Property Values. 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Tul.\re's Officers 163 

Supervisors — The Judiciary — The Lawmakers — Sheriff — District Attor- 
ney — Assessor — Surveyor — Tax Collector — Treasurer — Recorder — Public 
Administrator — Auditor — Superintendent of Schools — Coroner. 

CHAPTER XIX. 

TuL.\RE County Today 167 

The County's Boundaries — Nature of the Soil — Towns and Cities — Or- 
ange Groves — Forests. 

CHAPTER XX. 

The Organization of Kings County 174 

Creation and Organization of the County — Received Its Name from 
Kings River — The Division Fight a Feature of the Session of 1892-93 — 
Area of the County. 

CHAPTER XXI. 

Lucerne Valley 178 

Mussel Slough Rechristened Lucerne Valley — The Founding of the Han- 
ford Weekly Sentinel. 

CHAPTER XXII. 

Early County Politics 179 

Political Organization of Kings County — First Election Called — Parties 
in Action — Setting Up Housekeeping — No County Building — County 
Without Funds — First Tax Rate Fixed — County Elections. 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

Irrigation 192 

Beginning of Irrigation in Kings County — Pioneers in the Venture — 
Settlers' Ditch — Last Chance — Lakeland Canal and Irrigation Company 
— Blakeley Ditch — Kings Canal and Irrigation Company — Rainfall for 
Twenty-one Years. 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

Exit and Return of Tulare Lake 200 

An Interesting Natural Phenomenon — Original Area of Lake — Swamp 
and Overflow Land Act — "Lakelanders" — Lake Disappears in 1895 — 
Water Returns and Grain Is Destroyed. 

CHAPTER XXV. 

Railroads 202 

San Joaquin Valley Railroad Company — Its Promoters — Upbuilding In- 
fluence of Improved Transportation Facilities. 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

Dairy Industry 207 

Dairying in County Dates from 1889— Co-operative Company Formed — 
Factories Built — Alfalfa-Raising and Cheese-Making — Butter-Making — 
County Has Five Incorporated Creameries. 



V i i i CONTENTS 

CHAPTER XXVII. 

City of Hanford 209 

City Laid Out in 1877 — Named After James Hanford — Officers of City 
From 1891 to 1913— Hanford of Today— Vanishing of the Saloons- 
Churches — Schools of Kings County — Free Public Library. 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Lemoore 219 

Location and Population — Its Founder — Early Settlers — Coming of Rail- 
road — Churches and Public Buildings — Industries. 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Evolution of the San Jo.\quin Valley 220 

Address by John G. Covert Upon History of the Valley — First Seen by 
White Men in 1772 — Mount Diablo — Valley Begins to Attract Attention 
in 1849 — Cattle Raising First Industry — Wheat Farming Follows — Area 
of Valley — Oil Fields — Improvement in Railroad Facilites. 



INDEX 



A 

Abbott, Daniel 534 

Adams, Frank C 424 

Adams, William J 423 

Agnew, Jesse B 875 

Ainsworth, Francis M 761 

Akin, James M 364 

Alford, William 829 

Allen, Byron 783 

Allen, George E 832 

Antrim, Calvin H 841 

Arnett, Richard H 513 

Ashley, A. N 687 

Askin, Herbert 598 

Askin, Capt. Robert M 784 

Atwell, Allen J 855 

Aiilman, Phillip 527 

B 

Baca, Santos 752 

Bacon, James A 830 

Bacon, John 839 

Bagby, Earl 494 

Bairstow, John W 602 

Baker, Chauncey M 496 

Baker, Sands 357 

Balaam, Alfred 757 

Ballou, George A 464 

Bardsley, L. W 662 

Barnett, Bright E 702 

Barney, B, L 552 

Barney, Fred M 648 

Bartlett, George 679 

Barton, Orlando D 483 

Bass, Alexander W 505 

Bassett, Mark 717 

Bassett, William G 715 

Batchelder, Elmer A 617 

Baumann, George W 380 

Baxley, John W 553 

Belz, Andrew G 276 

Bequette, Charles C 419 

Bequette, James R 669 

Bequette, Louis 772 

Bequette, Paschal, Jr 456 

Bergen, Jasper N 858 

Bernstein, William F 625 

Berry, R. L 695 



Bertch, Henry 482 

Best, Alexander M 621 

Bezera, Joseph 597 

Biddle, Joseph D 315 

Biddle, Samuel E 326 

Blain, Frank L 533 

Blain, William H 546 

Blair, Thomas H 418 

Blakeley, Frank 528 

Blakeley. James M 588 

Blamquist, Charles R 509 

Blaswick, Charles F 477 

Bliss, George L 796 

Blossom, Ira 628 

Blowers, Cassius M 298 

Bloyd, Levi 650 

Bloyd, William W 323 

Bloyd, Winfleld S 382 

Bloyd, W. W 716 

Bondson, Peter 755 

Booker, Sanford 243 

Boone, James T 763 

Borgman, Henry J 596 

Bowker, N. B 874 

Bozeman, John W 833 

Braly, William H 794 

Brazill, M. P 689 

Brewer, Samuel A 481 

Bridges, George 785 

Brooks, Parker R 660 

Brothers, John 502 

Brown, H. P 871 

Brown, Joseph C 272 

Brown, Philip S 759 

Brown, Samuel C 754 

Brown, Volney A 272 

Brown, William S 664 

Brown, William W 756 

Bruce, Lewis 654 

Buckbee, Martha J 668 

Budd, William 678 

Burgamaster, Julius 550 

Burke, Ivan C 374 

Burke, Richard 835 

Burnham, John B 580 

Burr, Walter S .- 531 

Burrel, Cuthbert 703 

Burrell, John .-. 615 

Burton, Absalom 689 



INDEX 



Burton. Arthvir 724 

Bush, Edward E , 877 

Byron, E. H., M. D 404 

Byron, Henry W 676 

Byron. Lincoln H 485 

Byron. William P., M. D 426 

C 

Campbell, F. D 427 

Cann, .James M 661 

Carle, Charles J 648 

Carlisle. Frederick M 776 

Carter. David F 880 

Cartmill, Wooster B 296 

Cartmill. W. F., M. D 446 

Chance, Edward H 398 

Charles, William B., M. D 868 

Chatten, John 632 

Chatten. Richard 489 

Chatten. Wilmot L 632 

Church, Caryl 492 

Church. Elery H 672 

Clark, Harry A 551 

Clark, Isaac 309 

Clark. William B 590 

Clark, William M 867 

Clarke, Robert C 381 

Clarkson, Thomas J 616 

Clement, George S 735 

Clemente, John V 593 

Click, Martin 838 

Coats, Claude D 657 

Cochran, S. D 729 

Cody, George W 536 

Collins. Albert H 468 

Collins, Oscar F 554 

Collins. William W 425 

Colpien, Henry 549 

Comfort, Aimer B 417 

Comfort, Byron G 650 

Conkey, Fred W 800 

Cooke, William R 805 

Coolidge, Wilbur 518 

Cooper, J. R 730 

Cosper, Elias T 654 

Courtney, Samuel E 352 

Crabtree, James A 516 

Cramer, M. L 855 

Crane, Henry A 589 

Crawshaw, J. A., M. D 629 

Creath, John V 658 

Crook, Alexander 537 

Cutler, A. R 420 

Cutler, John 420 



D 

Daly, Arthur G 486 

Danner, .lohn C 441 

Davenport, William H 607 

Davidson, John W 674 

Davis, Andrew J 601 

Dean, Gilbert M. L 582 

Dean, .label M 868 

Dean. William F 766 

Deardorff, Oscar S 515 

Decker, Louis 591 

De La Grange. Barney 847 

DeMasters, David W 728 

Denny, Harvey N 641 

DeWitt. E 665 

DeWitt, William M 407 

Dibble, A, Leroy 516 

Dibble, Judson A 721 

Dineley, Samuel 765 

Dingley, Willard E 445 

Dockstader, John W 524 

Dodge, A. Fred 524 

Dodge, Fred A 307 

Donager, Benjamin 637 

Donahue. Martin 767 

Doyle, John J 801 

Dreisbach, A. M 836 

Drennen. Winfred D 597 

Dungan, A. Clifford 807 

Dunlap, James E 592 

Dunlap. John W 555 

E 

Eccles, Alexander C 501 

Eklof, Charles J 423 

Elliott, James M 556 

Elster, C. A 771 

Erlanger, Edward 726 

Esrey, Jonathan 685 

Estes, R. J 651 

Evans. John F 558 

Ewing, John, Jr 690 

F 

Farmer, George T 586 

Farmer. Lyman D 538 

Fenwick Sanitarium 493 

Ferguson. Josiah M 837 

Fickle, Benjamin J 764 

Ficklin, Joseph L 535 

Fincher, Robert P 666 

Findley, William 840 

Fine, James W 768 

Finn, Daniel 758 

First National Bank of Lemoore 308 



INDEX 



X 1 



First National Bank of Tulare 451 

First National Bank of Visalia 731 

Fisher, Charles 722 

Fisher, James 733 

Fitzsimons, Frank E 436 

Follett, Lyman L 735 

Fontana, M. J 872 

Foster, Earl P 642 

Foster, E. C, M. D 457 

Fowler, Perry D 397 

Frans, John 691 

Freeman, C. E 641 

Fry, Walter 704 

Fudge, Edmund J 603 

Fulmer, Alfred C _ 348 

Furman, William E 514 

G 

Gallaher, W. C 367 

Gamble, David 770 

Garcia, Mike V 652 

Garr, John W 430 

Gavotto, S 696 

Giannini, Frank 559 

Gibbons, O. E 545 

Gibson, E. J 688 

Gill, Charles 587 

Gill, Fred 584 

Gill, Lee 406 

Gill. Levi L 686 

Gilligan, Michael 846 

Glasgow, John M 723 

Glover, Louis N 706 

Goble, William E 258 

Gordon, George 370 

Gough, William 566 

Grabow, J 639 

Graham, R. M 643 

Gray, Dallas H 759 

Gregory, Levy N 725 

Gribi, Albert E 673 

Griffin, Asa T 484 

Griffith, Frank 439 

Griswold, Oscar T 544 

Guiberson, J. W 411 

Gurnee, Brewster S 791 

H 

Halford, Isaac T 787 

Hall, Albert A 618 

Hall, John E 513 

Hall, Samuel W 671 

Hamilton, Hugh L 389 

Hamlin, Benjamin, M. D 335 



Hanford National Bank 636 

Hannah, J. A 723 

Hansen, Christ S 653 

Harris, G. C 376 

Harris, Jesse W 586 

Hart, Charles W 458 

Hart, Edwin F 793 

Harvey, John W 530 

Hastings, U. G 720 

Hauschildt, John H 4S7 

Hawley, Luther C 395 

Hayes, Frank P 876 

Hays, John N 314 

Headrick, Daniel : 595 

Henley, Stepnen E 508 

Herrin, Daniel M 506 

Heusel, William P 775 

Hickman, David H 644 

Hicks, Benjamin 261 

Hicks, Stephen B 548 

Higdon, William J 304 

Hight, Frank R 148 

Hill, Melvin A 718 

Hine, John H SSI 

Hockett, John B «48 

Holley, C. H 732 

Holley, H. H 732 

Homen, Manuel R 715 

Homer, Joseph W 788 

Horsman, Henry C 039 

Hoskins, Charles W 802 

Houston. George W 719 

Houston, James 851 

Howard, Charles H 657 

Howe, Albert P 705 

Howe, Edwin H 532 

Howe, Frank E 519 

Howe, Fred C 490 

Howes, Thomas E 495 

Howeth, Lewis W 738 

Hubbs, Arthur P 786 

Huffaker, Jacob V 670 

Hunsaker, I. B 554 

Huntley, John H 255 

Hyde, Jeremiah D 692 

Hyde, Richard E 682 

J 

Jacob, Elias 737 

Jacobs, Hon. Justin 278 

Jacobs, H. Scott 405 

Jameson, Irving L 414 

Jasper, George 461 

Jenanyan, Moses S 568 

Johnson. James L 817 



X 1 1 



INDEX 



Johnson, John C S44 

Jordan, John F 331 

Joyner, Charles E 630 

K 

Kaehler. Mrs. Ida M 496 

Kanawyer, Napoleon P 640 

Kellenberg, Frank R 859 

Kelly. Samuel W 403 

Kelsey, Hiram 861 

Kennedy & Robinson 4.'j5 

Kenney. Samuel L 837 

Kimball, S. C TS9 

Kincaid, Roland L. 520 

King. Lowery B 4S0 

Kinkade. Squire H S15 

Kitchel, Elmer L 795 

Klindera. John 697 

Kneeland. Joel 696 

Knierr. Albert 694 

Knight, U. G _ 368 

Knight. Zenias 581 

Knox, George W 256 

Knutson, Iver 873 

Kyle. T. W 392 

L 

.Lafever. Andrew J 808 

LaMarche, Joseph 434 

LaMarsna, Eber H 673 

LaMarsna. Jeffery J 699 

Laney, Archie P _. 565 

Lathrop. Ezra _ 288 

Leach. John H 753 

Leavens. Peter ^ 675 

Leavens. William A 675 

Lee. Anderson W 816 

Leebon, John A 547 

Lemos. Manuel B 776 

Leoni. Leo 665 

Lewis, D. W 707 

Lewis. Thomas 445 

Ley, Joseph „... 852 

Light. H. J 320 

Lindsey, Tipton 270 

Lorendo. Gideon 391 

Loucks, Hon. Geo. P 821 

Lovelace. Byron 396 

Lovelace, Joseph W., 631 

Luce. Eugene A 792 

Lynch. Jlichael M .S21 

McAdam, Frank S 325 

McAdam, James 746 



McAdam Ranches 319 

McAdam, Robert 744 

McAdam, William J 363 

McCarthy. Thomas 512 

McClure. Benjamin E 700 

McCord. William P 345 

McCracken. W. H _ 521 

McFarland. Charles G 616 

McFarland. J. H. C 283 

McLaughlin, Stiles A 843 

McLean, P. A 336 

Macfarlane. W. C 778 

Machado. Manuel 1 497 

Maddox, Ben M 362 

Majors, Columbus P 241 

Mardis. Oliver P 361 

Marshall, Lionel W 390 

Mathewson, Arthur W 541 

Mathewson, Earl 625 

May. James H 504 

May. Jonathan W 764 

Mayer, James B 511 

Mayes, Francis M 842 

Melidonian, E. G 354 

Michaelis, William 845 

Miller. Herman T 747 

Miller. Robert W 324 

Miller, William H.. M. D 882 

Miller. William R 360 

Millinghausen, William H 572 

Mills. Merritte T 748 

Mitchell. Adolphus ^ 803 

Mitchell. Levi 769 

Mitchell. S 731 

Montgomery. Elbert R 518 

Montgomery. John 523 

Montgomery. Litchfield Y 287 

Moore. Hiram 529 

Moore. Orlando 379 

Moore. Robert A 429 

Moorehead. James A 452 

Morgan. John T 626 

Murphy, Daniel 569 

Murphy. Henry and Philena A 656 

Murphy. Rev. James 812 

Murray, Abram H 448 

Murray, ^y alter D 645 

N 

Navarre. Elizabeth 570 

Newman, Frank A 310 

Newman. Robert 478 

Newman. Thomas C 613 

Noble. George A 275 

Null. Robert 749 



INDEX 



X 1 1 1 





Oakes. James W 853 

Ogden. Robert K 864 

OgiU-ie, Albert G 6*9 

Osborn. Frank 359 

Overall, Daniel G 428 

P 

Parker. Hiram L 781 

Parrish. F. M 540 

Parsons. Ulysses G 573 

Peacock. Harrison F 701 

Perry. A. J 814 

Peterson. Alfred 347 

Peterson. Carl A 525 

Phariss. Tillman B 875 

Phelps. A. W 790 

Phillips. Perry C 777 

Piatt. Louis F 527 

Poe. Frank 721 

Pollock. George W 750 

Powell. Frank 385 

Powell. Harrison A 634 

Powers. Richard 811 

Prestidge. J. L 799 

Price. James S 788 

Putnam. Robert A 620 

R 

Ragle. Emanuel T 249 

Ragle. Henry 752 

Ragle. J. Albert 609 

Raisch, Harry J 604 

Ramsey. George D 698 

Raney. Asbury C '. 883 

Ratliff. William P 870 

Rea, Frank 814 

Reed. Henry W 818 

Reed. John R 619 

Rehoefer. Samuel 714 

Reinhart. William 557 

Renaud. Emerie 561 

Rhodes. William C 575 

Rice. John C 605 

Rice, J. Clarence 606 

Rice. J. W. B 373 

Richardson. Freeman 638 

Richardson. Gustavus A 510 

Richland Egg Ranch 778 

Rivers. William 883 

Robertson. Frank P 574 

Robinson. William W 820 

Robison. George A 567 

Rock. Henry F 708 



Roes, Henry C - 856 

Boss. Ean 677 

Rosson. Charles T., M. D 290 

Rourke. Michael F 522 

Russell, J. C. C 708 

S 

Sage. J. M 609 

Sahroian. Fred 823 

St. Bridget's Catholic Church 462 

Salladay. A. J ■ 782 

Scher. Rev. Philip G 462 

Schimmel Brothers 473 

Schnereger & Downing 663 

Schueller, John J 824 

Sciarone. Andrew 610 

Scoggins. Andrew J 269 

Scoggins, J. E 884 

Scoggins. R. E 886 

Scott Francis C 339 

Sears, William A 821 

Sellers. Edward G 680 

Setliff. James M 469 

Shannon, Carleton J 594 

Sharp, Benjamin V 543 

Shippey, Ahin B 498 

Shoemaker. Robert M 472 

Shreve, H. M 433 

Sickles, Lewis A 571 

Sigler, John 611 

Silveira. Joseph 563 

Singleton. M. F 797 

Slocum, Alvin H 342 

Smith. A. Frank 542 

Smith. Cecil H 819 

Smith. Charles E...... 470 

Smith. Clark M 709 

Smith. Enoch A 865 

Smith. Frank 711 

Smith, Frank P 739 

Smith, Henry C 862 

Smith, John H 437 

Smith, Lewis S 866 

Smith, Thomas 819 

Smith, W. J 474 

Stayton. Charles F t)47 

Steuben. William N 740 

Steves, George H 683 

Stokes, John W 2S1 

Stokes, S. C 295 

Storzback. Fred 514 

Stubbelfield. William N 806 

Sturgeon. Joseph W 71i» 

Swall. Arthur 380 

Swall. William 849 



X 1 V 



INDEX 



Swan, William 359 

Sweeney, James 741 

T 

Taylor, J. L 622 

Teague, George H 825 

Thayer, J. Carl 773 

Thayer, William H 383 

The Old Bank of Hanford 433 

Thomas, F. A 488 

Thomas, Isaac H 263 

Thomas, Jesse A 742 

Thomas, Louis L 774 

Thomas. Martin V 499 

Thomson, Peter 780 

Tomer, George 341 

Tompkins, Charles W 884 

Townsend, Homer C 693 

Tozer, Charles W 33? 

Tozer, Roy S 'J38 

Traeger, Henry G 49T 

Traut, Mrs. Catherine L 659 

Trewhitt, W. D 798 

Tulare Home Telephone and Tele- 
graph Company 376 

Turner, Jesse T 668 

Turner, Lucius H 622 

Tyler, John D 250 

Twaddle, Thomas B 404 

U 
Unger. William 576 

V 

Vail Brothers 863 

Vaughan, William T.'. 313 

Vaughn, David A 471 

Visalia Plumbing and Sheet Metal 

Company 309 

w 

Waddell, George E 242 

Walker, John E 681 



Walker, John and Serepta . 686 

Walker, William G 6.S4 

Ward, Harvey L 826 

Warner, Erastus F 023 

Warren, Isaac H 889 

Webb, Octavius H MV) 

Weddle, Ethelbert S G08 

Weddle, M. E 762 

Wegman. George J..... 442 

Weigle, Martin L 579 

Wells, James M 888 

Wells, Morgan J 599 

Wendling, G. X 375 

West, Joshua E 889 

West, William B 662 

Wheeler, Alexander W 646 

Whitaker, William 634 

White, Capt. Harrison .'... 301 

Whittington, William, M. D 712 

Williams, Alpheus C 627 

Williams, George W 450 

Williams, Joel W 585 

Williams, John W 743 

Williams, William A 828 

Wilson, Henry L 713 

Wilson, John A 851 

Wilson, Osborne L 612 

Wirht, Martin 834 

Wood, Daniel 751' 

Wood, George 477 

Woodard, Homer D 577 

Woods, A. J 526 

Wookey, Sidney H 636 

Work, Enoch 507 

Wray, George U 563 

Wright, Harland E 330 

Wright, Isaac N 351 

Wright, James W 500 

Y 

Young, J. N 887 

z 

Zumwalt, Daniel K 401 



HISTORICAL 

CHAPTER I. 

INTRODUCTORY TO HISTORY OF TULARE COUNTY 
By Eiigejie L. Menefee. 

A preat'lier and a teaclicr, it apitears, curiously euou.uli wore the 
two first white leaders to enter what is now Tulare county. Each 
l)ore the name of Smith. Jedediah S. Smith, the preaclier, arrived 
in 1825 or '26, accompanied by about fifteen trappers, he being the 
first white man to cross the Sierra Nevada mountains. Entry to the 
valley was made via the Tejon pass. Thousands of naked Indians 
were seen. Tulare lake was observed and successful trai)i)ing for 
beaver was conducted along the upper reaches of the Kings, San 
Joaquin and Sacramento rivers. In 1827 Smith made a return trij), 
entering through Walker's pass. 

It should be understood that Jed was not an ordained minister, 
but being a strong and aggressive Cliristian, he endeavored to con- 
vert to that faith the reckless and lawless men who joined his band. 
Bible readings, prayers, exhortations mingled with reproofs were 
features of each day, no matter how wearisome had been the march. 
It is said, however, that his efforts at reform were not entirely suc- 
cessful. 

"Pegleg" Smith, the teacher, visited our vicinity in 1S:5(1, and 
was eminently successful. "Pegleg" did not hold a degree nor even 
a certificate. He was a horse-thief by profession and he took u]) 
quarters among the Indians, establishing friendly relations with 
them and thus obtained a place of refuge and a rendezvous for the 
round-up of stolen stock when ready to proceed on the return journey 
to the Santa Fe country. In return for the hospitality extended him, 
Mr. Smith allowed some of the Indians to accompany him on raids 
to tlie ranchos of the coast and taught them all the elements of a])i)ro- 
priatiou. Due, no doul)t, to Mr. Smith's ability as an educator, 
these lessons were not forgotten and tlie practices inculcated by him 
were so i)ersistent]y folh:)wed that in the course of time the Indians 
gained the merited title of "the horse-thieves of the Tulare." 

Oiie of Pegleg's ])arty met a tragic fate. Missed from cami) 

on Kern river, near the site of the present Keyesville, he was found 

dead alongside the carcass of a huge grizzly, his body mutilated and 

his head crushed. '^I'liere had evidently been a deadly fight in which 

both contestants had succumbed. 'i'lie I'ude wooden cross whicli 
1 



6 TULAEE AND KIXGS COUNTIES 

marked bis lonely fi,rave still stood in 1H'A\ when the Kern river j^old 
rush took place. 

Closely following;- Jedediah Smith came Ewing Young and party, 
who started tra])])ing in the San Joafpiin valley in 1831, finding 
beaver plentiful. Young hunted in the vicinity of Tulare lake for a 
short time and theu took his way northward. During the next 
decade several other groups of trapjiers passed through the San 
Joaquin valley. Between the Tulare valley and the Calaveras river 
there was at that time an estimated Indian iwpulation of 20,000. 

For any accurate knowledge of the county as it existed then we 
must await the coming, in 1846, of John C. Fremont, an account of 
which will be given in a later chapter. 

History — human history — began to lie recorded in what is now 
Tulare county at a time long prior to the events just related. 

So remote is this date that we of the present day can scarcely 
hazard even a guess as to the number of centuries that have elapsed 
since this civilizatioji flourished. Probalily it existed co-eval with 
that of the mound builders of the Mississippi — with that of the cliff 
dwellers of Arizona. It is probable that at that time the waters of 
the Pacific filled the valley of the San Joacpiin so that the area of 
our county was once smaller thau it is now. These surmises are based 
on the fact that in numerous places throughout the Sierra Nevada 
mountains are found picture writings of the origin of which our 
latter day Indians have not even a tradition. They cannot interpret 
them, nor do they possess any knowledge of the art of making the 
indesti'uctible paints used. 

On a bluff near the railroad bridge across the Kaweah at Lemon 
Cove, at Rocky Hill, near Exeter, in Stokes valley, at "VVoodlake, at 
Dillon's point, at Hospital Rock on the middle fork of the Kaweah, 
some thirteen miles above Three Rivers and in many other jilaces 
these pictures are found. 

In several instances the arrangement of the figures is in columns. 
This would seem to indicate that they are tribal or genealogical rec- 
ords. Swords and spears, weapons absolutely unknown to present- 
day Indians, are among the objects represented. Others are bears, 
birds, pine trees, man, the sun, a fire, circles, crosses, etc. Up to the 
present time no key has been found to these hieroglyphics. A fac- 
simile of the paintings on Hospital Rock has been sent to the Smith- 
sonian Institution at Washington, but as yet the learned men there 
have been unable to decipher the record. As the fund of knowledge 
regarding the sign-writing of all tribes throughout the world is con- 
stantly increasing, as they are studied and com]>ared and grou]ied in 
systems, and certain meanings definitely established, it is not improb- 
able that at some future time the first chapters of Tulare county's 
history mav vet be translated into English. Even so, then would 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 7 

elapse a period of thousands of years without a line. No tradition 
existed Iiere among tlie Indians as to any migration or se])aration 
from another tribe. They believed themselves to be al)origines. Yet 
there were trails known to them l)y which the Sierras could be 
crossed. 

No reports from the passing l)ands of trappers hastened the 
coming of settlers. With them a country was good or liad according 
as many valuable pelts could or could not be there obtained, and no 
note was taken of its adaptaliility for agriculture. Neither was it by 
the accounts set fortli by Fremont, wliich were meager and of a 
scientific nature. 

Tlie fact was that in the '4!l rush to tlie gold fields of Calif ornia 
many trains came l)y the southern route and passed through the Four 
Creeks country, as this section was tlien called. Out of a desert they 
came, and pursuing their way northward, Inick into what was then 
almost a desert they went. We can well imagine their delight at the 
sight of the vast, oak-forested delta covered with knee-high grasses. 
We can imagine, too, their chafing at the delay here occasioned by 
the necessity of getting their animals in condition to proceed farther. 
All were keenly anxious to reach the foot of the rainbow. And when, 
after toil and trouble, hardship, misfortune and ill-luck, they failed 
to find it, we can imagine them as keenly anxious to return to the 
delightful land they had left. 

The first to really settle there was a trader named Woods, who with a 
party of about fifteen men arrived in December of 1850. This party 
came from Mariposa and was well equipped with saddle and pack ani- 
mals, arms, implements of l)uilding, etc. They located on the south 
bank of the Kaweah river, about seven miles east of ^^isalia, where 
they built a. substantial log house. Of the fate of this ]iarty accounts 
vary somewhat. The accepted version is that in the spring of '51, an 
Indian l)earing the name of Francisco, speaking some Si^anish, and 
probably one of the renegades from the ranches of the coast, with 
a number of Kaweahs, of whom he apj^eared to be chief, ordered the 
settlers to leave that section of the country within ten days, with 
the alternative of death if they remained beyond the allotted time. 
The settlers agreed to go and made prejiarations for their departure, 
burying the provisions and such farming implements as they pos- 
sessed and proceeded to gather their stock. 'While thus engaged the 
tenth day passed, and the Indians returned to fulfill their threat. 
Ten of the settlers were killed while hunting their stock, two made 
their escape, one of whom was wounded. 

The savages then approached the house in which was Woods and 
another. They professed friendship, and thus removed the aii])re- 
hensions of their victims, who were unconscious of the fate of their 
fellows. One of the whites was asked to hold up a target that the 



8 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

ludiaiis miylit exhiliit their skill with the bow aud arrow; he com- 
plied, whereupon the treacherous Kaweahs turued their aim uijon 
him aud f|uickly shot him to death. Woods fled to the cabin and 
fastened the door. This the savages attacked with great fury, but it 
was strong and resisted their assaults. Woods had a single rifle and 
a short sujiply of ammunition, aud with this he attempted to defend 
himself. Of all this we have the reports of Indians only, as from the 
time the two escaped none other was left to tell the story of the 
treachery and the tragedy. The entrapjjed man determined to sell 
his life as dearly as possible. As opportunity offered he fired through 
the apertures of the logs and with deadly effect, as during the contest 
seven of the Indians were killed. At last the scanty ammunition was 
exhausted, and the despairing condition of the helplessness overcame 
the l)rave Woods. The assailants, finding their prisoner no longer 
able to do them harm, renewed their efforts on the door, until it at 
last gave way and the enemy was in their ]iower. Woods had made 
a brave defense, had slayed and wounded many of their numlier and 
a revenge in consonance with the Indian spirit was determined upon. 
This was nothing less than flaying him alive. The doomed man was 
bound down and while defying his torturers, his skin was taken from 
his liody aud afterwards nailed to an oak tree. 

According to Stephen Barton the cause of the outbreak as given 
by the Indians was that Indians from the north sought the aid of the 
Kaweahs as allies, representing that the whites were seizing their 
country and driving them out. When the tribes of this valley 
declined to assist the visitors, these made war upon them and cap- 
tured many of their women. The majority of them fled to the hills. 
the few remaining slaughtering the Woods ]:)arty. Other accounts 
are that from seven hundred to one thousand Indians took part in the 
butchery. 

A party headed by a man named Lane arrived within a day or 
so after the massacre and rescued a wounded man, whose name 
was Boden, aud carried him back with them to Marii)osa, where he 
recovered. To C. R. Wingfield, Boden gave a detailed account of the 
fight at the Woods cabin. 

A report of the massacre was taken to Fort Miller, on the San 
Joaquin river, and a detachment of troops in command of General 
Patten inarched to the feceue. The log house stood intact and evi- 
dence of the In-ave defense, the massacre and the butchery remained. 
What was left of the bodies was buried and work was commenced on 
the construction of a fort about half a mile from the Woods cabin, 
but before its completion the troops were withdrawn. 

The above story is essentially as given by Stephen Barton in 
his early history of Tulare county, his data being obtained from 
several of the first settlers. In the issue of the Visalia Sun dated 



TFLABE AND KINGS COUNTIES D 

September 5, 1860, Ahriilwnn llillianl, who arrived in the sprini;' of '.'')4 
and lived for three months in the Woods cabin, gives i)rac'tically the 
same version. i)la('insi' tlie date of tlie massacre, however, as Decem- 
ber 13, 1850. 

Gilbert M. L. Dean, who arrived in the Fonr Creeks conntry 
when a lad abont twelve years of age, states that his father's family 
came from Texas in a party conducted by Nat ^"ise. Both the Vise 
and Dean families remained for a time at Los Angeles, and Vise, 
taking young Dean with him, left for the northern country, traveling 
on horseback, and with a i)ack outfit. They remained a few days 
near the Kaweah. Vise decided to push onward to the mines and 
left the Dean boy with Loomis St. John (for whom the St. John 
river was afterwards named), who then had a cabin near the river. 
al)out a half mile from that afterwards constructed l)y the AVoods 
party. Thus the general belief that the latter structure was the 
first permanent lialiitation erected by white men within the present 
limits of Tulare county is disputed by Dean, who was living in St. 
John's caliin wlien the Woods party arrived to establish their settle- 
ment. 

St. John and his young companion, who were glad to have neigh- 
bors of their own race, went over one day where they had before 
seen Woods and his men felling trees and building their house. They 
were surprised to hear no wood-chopping or other noise when they 
approached, and when near the cabin, which was almost completed, 
they were horrified to see the body of a man lying on the groTind. 
The skin had been removed and was fastened to the bark of a large 
oak tree hard by on the bank of the stream. They were unable to 
find any other member of the ]>arty, alive or dead, and saw no 
Indians. 

S(ildiers and otliers arrived within a day or two, among tliem 
being some of the men wlio had been with Woods. They stated that 
Woods had gone to the cabin to ])repare dinner or had remained 
there after l)reakfast and was attacked by the Indians when alone at 
the cabin. The others heard the firing of Woods' gun and the shout- 
ing of the Indians, and lieing unarmed or poorly armed and unal)le 
to reach the cabin to assist AVoods, they hid their axes and mauls and 
saved themselves by flight. 

Dean says he never heard of any other person than Woods having 
l)een killed at tliat time, but does not remember to have heard 
whether an.\- of the survivors were wounded or molested by the 
Indians. The Woods cabin was used for a schoolhouse afterwards, 
and Dean and his l)rother attended school there later, when, after his 
return to Los Angeles, tlie Dean family came to tlie Kaweah settle- 
ment to reside permanently. Dean was therefore at this i)]ace as a 
pupil in the first school in Tulare county and he still has a vivid 



10 TULARP] AXD KIXGS COUNTIES 

recollection of the locality. When visitin.o- the i)lace, with othei's. a 
few j'ears ago lie at once recognized the tree on wliich Woods' skin 
was hnng by the Indians and pointed out the location of the honse 
and about the spot where Woods' ))ody lay, and an involuntary 
shudder was noticed to pass through the old gentleman's frame as 
he stood there. Although the oldest resident of Tulare county, the 
l)ioneer of Tulare pioneers, he is still vigorous, retains all his faculties 
perfectly and remembers distinctly the [iriucipal events of that early 
time, many of which he participated in. 

Apparently uuterritied l)y the fate of the Woods i)arty, settlers 
and traders continued to straggle in. In the fall of 1851, C. B. Wing- 
field and A. A. Wingfield arrived from Mariposa. On the way the>' 
met two men named McKeuzie and Eidley, who had been trading 
with the Indians for several years and who were somewhere in the 
neighborhood when the Woods jiarty was slain. A bridge had been 
l)uilt across the Kaweah near the Woods cabin, but there was no 
settlement. The Wingfields settled near the cabin, laying claim to 
the land from the river southward. They found the Indians friendly 
and sociable, and although their outfit was within the reach of hun- 
di-eds of this people and contained a multiplicity of small articles, 
yet the.v never missed so much as a needle. 

In December of tlie same year, Xathauiel and Abner Vise came 
to what is now \'isalia and l)uilt a log cabin on the north bank of Mill 
ci'eek. ()n the site of the camps of these two pairs of brothers were 
afterwards built the two towns that contended for the honor of being 
the seat of justice of Tulare county. These two pairs of brothers, 
between whose camps were seven miles of almost unbroken jungle, 
appear to have been the only settlers in the country witli a fixed 
domicile. They were unknown to each other and ignorant of the 
other's whereabouts. 

The state legislature was in session. Many first-class politicians 
at Mariposa were either out of a job or i)ossessed of one the emolu- 
ments of which were not satisfactory. These events and conditions 
would not have interested either the l)rothers Vise or the Wingfields. 
Yet so interwoven are the strands of destiny tliat life or death to the 
Wingfields was later to dei)end on the activity of the Mari])osa schem- 
ers and their "pull" with the legislators. It was at the l)ehest of 
this horde of hungry office-seekers that the legislature passed an act 
and the same was approved A])ril 20, 1852, as follows: 

"The county of Mariposa is hereby subdivided as follows: Be- 
ginning at the summit of the coast range, at the corner of Monterey 
and San Luis Obisi)o covmties; thence running in a northeasterly 
direction to the ridge dividing the waters of the San Joaquin and 
Kings rivers; thence along the ridge to the summit of the Sierra; 
thence in the same direction to the state line: thence southeasterlv 



TULARK AND KlXfJS COUNTIES 11 

along said line to the comity of Los Angeles; tlience sontliwesterly 
along the line of Los Angeles connty to Santa Barbara; thence along 
the summit of the coast range to the point of beginning. 

"The southern portion of Mariposa county so cut ofi, shall l)e 
called Tulare county. The seat of justice shall be at the log cabin on 
the south side of Kaweah creek, near the bridge built by Dr. Thomas 
Payne, and sliall l)e called Woodsville, until changed by the ijeople as 
l>rovided l)y law. 

"During the second week of July next there shall l)e chosen for 
Tulare county one county judge, one county attorney, one county 
clerk, one recorder, one sheriff, one county surveyor, one assessor, one 
coroner and one treasurer. 

"The county judge chosen under this act shall hold his office for 
two years from next October, and until his successor is elected and 
ciualified. The other officers elected shall hold their resi)eetive offices 
for one year, and until their successors are elected and qualiiied. 
The successors of the officers elected under this act shall be chosen at 
the general elections established by law, which take place next pre- 
ceding the expiration of their respective terms." 

James D. Savage, M. B. Lewis, John Boling and W. H. McMillen 
were appointed conunissioners to cari-y out the law and conduct the 
election. 

The i)rime mover in this scheme to form a new county was 
William H. Harvey. He and his associates knew of the nuissacre of 
the Woods party and, fully expecting to have to tight tlieir way to 
the P^our Creeks, ])laced the cx])editiou under the connnand of Major 
James D. Savage. 

Orlando Barton says: "Major Savage's party as it left Mari- 
posa was com]K)sed mostly of men on horseback. Many men with 
families ])re]iared to follow with teams. The first general rendezvous 
was on Grand Island. A settlement was already forming on Kings 
river. I have heard it stated that the office-seekers from Mariposa 
hired enough Whigs to come with them to outvote the Democrats on 
Arkansas Flat. On Grand Island, July 8th, the commissioners held 
their first meeting. They ordered an election to be held on July 10, 
1852, and appointed William J. Campbell to act as the ins])ector at 
Poole's Perry and William Dill to act as inspector at Woodsville. 
These were the only ])recincts established. All the wagons with the 
women and children stayed on Grand Island, while Major Savage 
marshaled the fighting men for the advance on Four Creeks. 

"Including the board of commissioners they were fifty-two strong 
and on the morning of July !)tli they started from Poole's Ferry to 
cross the plains. It lacked about an hour and a half of sundown when 
they arrived in the outskirts of the timber at the foot of \'enice hills. 
Here they saw hostile ludiaus. Major Savage's party rode along the 



12 TULARK AXD KTX(!S COFXTIKS 

southwest side of the A'enit-e hills, Hriiii;- riiilil and left at eveiv Indian 
they saw. 

RESCI'E OF THE WIXGFJELDS 

"On the mornino- of July 8, 1852, three lumdred armed Indians 
came to the Wiugfiekl hrothers' camp and took them and an Indian boy 
who was with them jirisoners, and marched tliem across tlie Kaweah 
and St. John rivers. Near the north banl< of tlie St. John, the Indians 
tied the Wingfield brothers and their companion liand and foot and 
laid them on the ground. Tlie Wiugtields were kept in this ])lace all 
one day and the succeeding night. The 9th of July was hot and sultry. 
The Indians were morose and sulky. They stayed at a distance from 
the Wingfields and talked only to themselves. Neither the AVingfields 
nor their companion could understand the cause of their imprison- 
ment. They knew nothing of the advance of Major Savage's ])arty. 
They did not know that tlieir captors constituted one of tlie forces 
sent to hold the fords of the St. John against the men from ^lariposa. 

"If I were a novelist I would novr tell what the AViugheld broth- 
ers thought at this crisis in their lives. I would tell how they were 
tormented by swarms of Hies, armies of ants, and cold lizards with 
poisonous fangs. But as I am only an historian I can tell only what I 
know. Charley Wingfield said that he did not know what was to 
become of them. The fate of Woods was fresh in their minds and we 
may reasonalily be permitted to guess that they expected to be 
skinned. 

"The sun was about au hour high in the west when an Indian 
came running around the southernmost of the Venice hills holding one 
of his arms straight u]) in the air. His arm, which was covered with 
blood, was shot through with a bullet. Some of the Indians who were 
guarding the Wingfields ran forward to meet him. A short palaver 
was held. Then three or four of them went to the place where the 
Wing-fields were tied down. They untied them and then all the In- 
dians suddenly disappeared. 

"The AVingtields went to the river and after swinuning it, were 
climbing up on its south bank, when they saw Major Savage's party 
coming around the point of the hill from the direction of Mount A'iew 
Park. The Wingiields re-crossed the river and joined the ])arty. 

THE ELECTION 

"As soon as Major Savage's party arrived, the commissioners 
commenced to prejiare for the election. For this purpose they selected 
the tree that stood farthest out on the open ground. This was done 
so that they could get the benefit of any breeze that might lie blowing. 
There has been recently a sign ])laced on this tree and any person can 
find it. It stands about half way l)etween the Tulare Irrigation com- 
pany's flume and the Southern Pacific railroad bridge across the St. 
John river. '^Die jiioneers occujiied the ground between the election 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 13 

tree and the river, and utilized the shade of several oilier trees. IMes- 
sengers were sent hack to Poole's iVrry and night found the Mariposa 
adventurers in possession of the camp that the captors of the Wing- 
fields had so recently occupied." 

The poll list of the Woodsville i)recinct was as follows: Augustus 
John, S. D. F. Edwards, Early Tiyon, Martin Morris, J. B. Marsh, 
John A. Patterson, T. Hale, Richard Matthews, J. M. Snockters, R. 
P. Cardwell, S. P. Carter, C. Keener, Benj. Mettors, A. B. Gordon, 
J. M. Jackson, Henry Crowell, Wni. B. Hobbs, John Reefe, Clark 
Royster, S. M. Brown. J. G. Morris, P. F. HesJjerp, B. B. Harris. 
A. H. Corbitt, L. B. Lewis, William Pedersen, W. C. McDougal, 
George H. Rhodes, Joseph A. Tivy, W. H. Howard, Charles J. Jones, 
Isaac McDonald, Joshua Sledd, W. H. Erving, James D. Savage. 
Robert F. Parks, J. L. Avenill, William Dougle, W. W. McMillen, 
William Dill, Penny Douglas, George H. Rogers, L. St. John, James 
Wate, A. J. Lawrence, Thomas McCormick, B. B. Overton, James 
Davis, A. A. Wingfield, R. Schuffler, A. M. Cameron. C. R. AVingtield 
voted at Poole's ferry, as did Nathaniel Vise. 

In looking over this poll list the observer is at once struck with 
the infre(]ueucy of well-known names of early pioneers. This was 
because there were few bona lide settlers in the settlement. 

After the election the commissioners remained in camp, received 
the returns from Poole's ferry and canvassed the entire vote. The 
following officers were elected: for county judge, Walter II. Harvey; 
county attorney, F. H. Sanford; county clerk, E. D. F. Edwards; 
recorder, A. B. Gordon; sheriff, William Dill; surveyor, Joseph A. 
Tivy; assessor, James B. Davis; coroner, W. W. McMillen; treasurer, 
L. C. Fraukenlierger. 

On July 12th, the county otlicers took the oath of office and the 
county seat remained for some time under the election tree, although 
most of the county officers returned shortly to Mariposa. 

Edwards, the county clerk, was killed in a quarrel with a man 
named Bob Collins, shortly after his arrival in Marijiosa, and soon 
afterwards Major Savage was killed by Judge Harvey. Franken- 
berger. in a fit of delirium tremens, wandered off into the swamp and 
died. Later in the season. Dr. Everett was engaged in gambling at 
Woodsville with a man named Ball and a dis]mte arose about $5. 
Everett asked Ball if he was armed. P)all replied that he was not, 
whereujion ?]verett co/mnanded liim to go and arm himself. Ball said 
that he would and started for his camji. Everett said he would go 
with him and see that he did it, ]>ulliug out his pistol at the sanu' 
time. P>all then tf)ld him that the best way was to leave the matter 
till another day and it would pro1)ably be settled. "No," said Ever- 
ett, "one of us must die now." Ball stoojted over and carelessly 
rubbed his leg, saying, "If I must fight, I shall fight for Ijlood." and 



14 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

at the same time suddenly lifting iiis jiantaloons and drawing a 
revolver from his boot, shot Everett dead without drawing the pistol 
from its scal)bard. Ball was examined before a justice of the peace 
and discharged. "W. J. Campbell and Loomis St. John were justices 
of the peace and they, acting as associate judges with the county 
judge, constituted the court of sessions liy which county affairs were 
administered. 

At the lirst meeting of the court of sessions held October 4, 1852. 
Judge Harvey ])residiug, a license for a ferry on Kings river and 
for a toll bridge at the Kaweah was granted. Thomas McCormick 
was appointed assessor to succeed Everett, and P. A. Eainholt was 
named to succeed J. C. Erankenberger. An election proclamation 
was issued for the general election to be held on the first Tuesday 
of November, 1852, for county and state officers and for presidential 
electors. Bona fide settlers had now commenced to arrive. Among 
the first were S. C. Brown. A. H. Murray and family, three Matthews 
families, three Glenn families. Colonel Baker and family. Bob Stev- 
enson and family, Abraham Ililliard and family, 0. K. Smith, Samuel 
Jennings, Tom Willis, Tom Baker, G. F. siiip. J. C. Reed, John 
Cutler, Nathan Dillon and Edgar Reynolds. 

Nat Vise induced most of these parties to accompany him to 
the neighborhood of his claim, where they could, he said, find lietter 
land. They were i)leased with this locality and got Vise to release 
his title to the claim he had first taken up, with a view to laying out a 
town and having it become the county seat. For protection against 
Indians a stockade was built large enough to hold the wagons and 
supplies and several log houses. This fort was situated on ground 
now bounded by School, Bridge, Oak and Garden streets, and was 
constructed by setting puncheons upright in a ditch about three feet 
deep. An extension of about four feet was made at each corner 
which permitted a raking fire on the side to be directed against an 
attacking party, should an attempt be made to climl) over. 

The naming of the new settlement ai)i)eared to be the occasion 
of some dispute. The majority of the citizens favored naming it 
after its founder, Nathaniel A'ise. l)ut Ihc lioard of supervisors desig- 
nated it Buena Vista. The word A'isalia lirst appears in the record 
of the court of sessions in August, 1853, when an order was entered 
dividing the county into townships. Woodsville and A'isalia town- 
ships were divided by a line running north and south from the cross- 
ing of Canoe creek. 

Its derivation is believed by some to be from Vise and Sally or 
Salia, the name of ^'ise's wife. Others believe it to be a combination 
of Vise with Sa-ha-la, the Indian name for sweat house, and still 
others think it merely the termination "alia," as in Vaudalia, Cen- 
tralia, etc., chosen on account of its ])leasing sound. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 15 

lu October of 1853 was lield the tirst session of the board of 
supervisors. Town lots were parceled out and the record shows the 
entry, "Ordered that tlie seat of justice be Buena Vista." In the 
records of the court of sessions for February, 1851, the name Buena 
Vista api)eared for the last time, all suljseciuent jiroceedings being 
dated Visalia. On the 11th of March, 1854, the board of supervisors 
entered an order granting the prayer of certain ])etitioners that tlie 
name of tlie seat of justice be Visalia. So much concerns the dispute 
over the name. The election l)y which tlie transfer of the seat of 
justice from Woodsville was effected was held in '[SoA. Judge Cutler 
was tlie cham]>ion of Woodsville and Judge Thomas Baker of \'isalia. 
The vote was \ery close and bribery and corruption were alleged to 
have l)een used. The friends of Woodsville charged that the result 
in favor of ^^isalia was from the bribery of two or three voters and 
there was at least one uotable ease where one man obtained an eligi])le 
location a half mile south of the site of Visalia and that he thus 
seemed to desert his Woodsville friends. 

Although Baker carried the day in respect to his choice of county 
seat, he was defeated for judge, as Cutler proved far the more pop- 
ular. There was constructed a sort of courthouse of rough boards 
affording an enclosure and a shelter and records were kept on scraps 
of ])aper and deposited in a wooden box. Much of the ])roceedings 
and accounts were kei^t in memory. 

At the session of the l)oard of supervisors in March, 1854, many 
town lots were sold anil an order was entered for building a jail 
sixteen feet in the clear inside and ten feet between floors. The 
building to be two stories high, to be built of hewed logs eight indies 
square, dove-tailed and i)inned at the corners; the wall to be double 
with a space iietween six inches wide, to be filled with liroken rock. 
The floor was to be of logs of similar size, planked, and the planking 
to be held down by "double tens," one nail in every superficial inch. 
This order was to be pulilished in a Mariposa newsjiaper. Although 
this was the first jail and courthouse in the new county, it was not 
built in time to acconmiodate the first prisoners or to furnish a place 
in which to hold the first trial. 

The first arrest in the county was that of Judge Harvey for 
the killing of Major Savage, luit notliing came of it. As previously 
related, Ball was acquitted for the killing of F]verett. Tlie first 
case ti'ied in the county was before a justice of tlie ])eace. It was 
that of a young Indian charged with shooting an arrow into a 
work-ox whereby the animal was more or less disabled. At this 
time few i)ersons had allowed themselves to think of a lightei' 
jumishment for an Indian tliau that of summary execution. All 
concurred in the oiiiiiion tliat siicli mischief should not be toler- 
ated. The mass of the Indians were disposed to be friendly, but 



16 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

were not disposed to lake the same view of the uecessity of 
adoptin.o' a more severe penalty for the Indians than was meted 
out to whites for similar offenses. The chief was anxious to 
preserve jieace and volunteered his services to aid in the arrest 
of the culi)rit. The officers de]iutized to make the arrest were 
C. R. "Wingfield and Jim Hale. They, in company with the chief, 
went to Cottonwood creek, near Elder Springs (AVoodlake). Here 
the old chief suggested the plan of having the officers remain 
under a tree while he should go and make the arrest. 

Among these Indians the jirdxince of a chief is to advise 
rather than command, and the old chief perhaps regarded it as 
.uncertain wliether the young men of the camp would acquiesce 
in the surrender until they knew what the character of the ])un- 
ishment would 1)e. The chief's pony was well jaded and "Wing- 
field suggested an exchange of horses. After the officers had 
remained under the trees until they ))egan to grow impatient, 
they saw two or three Indians on foot aiijiroaching from a dis- 
tance. They came up and sullenly seated themselves under the 
tree. Soon after three or four more appeared. They were hounti- 
fuUy supplied with bows and arrows and "Wingfield made tJie 
comment that they were going to be able to make an arrest quite 
beyond the scope of their original purpose. He saw no other 
plan, however, than that of awaiting the return of his horse. 
Soon the chief nuide liis appearance with the prisoner, followed 
by about forty Indians fully equipped for war. 

"When they came up, the officers, assuming a bold front in 
an uni^leasant emergency, took the pi'isoner in charge and started 
for cam]), a distance of about ten miles. Arriving there the jiro- 
cession halted in front of the office of the justice of the peace, 
i.e., mider the election tree. The Indians were resolved to allow 
no punishment which they did not sanction to be inflicted. The 
whites, of whom there were eighteen, were unaccustomed to brook 
anything like insolence from an Indian without shooting him down, 
and, having started in with the case, they saw no means of 
retreat without feeling a loss of dignity. 

Such an astounding capture, though unexpected, was fully 
comprehended and both parties were well assured that the first 
display of force on either side until the matter was arranged 
would lead to indiscriminate slaughter. For two days and two 
nights the matter was angrily discussed and finally the Indians 
submitted to having the case tried in the white man's way. 'i'lie 
evidence on both sides was heard, and a judgment rendered that 
the accuse<l Indian pay a fine of fifty l)uckskins to the owner of 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 17 

the ox. Tlie ludians aeoe])ted this verdict as being ])erfectly just, 
the fine was at once paid and .yood feeling re-establislied. 

In the new settlement, by the close of '53 and tlic beginning 
of '54. many enterprises had been undertaken and much activity 
along many different lines manifested. Warren Matthews was 
building a millrace and a gristmill, using largely Indian labor. 
Nathan Baker had o]iened a store ; a man named Ketchem started 
a saloon; many settlers made the trip to Stockton for seed, im- 
plements and ])r()visitms. A school was started with aliout half a 
dozen scholars. Children had been born, Commodore Murray being 
the first and "Sieb" Stevenson the second. 0. K. Smith imt up 
a sawmill for cutting oak timber, about half a mile east of Visalia. 

But we will pause here in the narration of historical events, 
while we have the opportunity, to survey the conditions in which 
the settlers found themselves. In 1853 the Williamson topograph- 
ical survey party, in search of a railroad route through the in- 
terior of California, passed through this valley. The impressions 
of mineralogist William B. Blake, set down at the time, are so 
vivid and interesting that they are reproduced here. 

"Kings river to the Four Creeks, Aug. 1, 40.4 miles: Left 
camp on the borders of Kings river and travelled along its right 
bank to Poole's ferry, twelve miles below. 

"From the banks of the river at this ferry, there is nothing 
to obstruct the vision across the whole breadth of the Tulare 
valley, and the coast mountains may be dimly seen rising above 
the limits of the far-stretching jilains. The Sierra Nevadas also 
present a magnificent spectacle from this place. The chain aj)- 
pears to reach a great altitude and to rise abruptly from the 
surrounding subordinate ridge. The outlines of the distant chain 
were sharply defined and the prominent peaks showed out boldly 
against the clear blue sky. Snow was resting on the summits in 
broad white fields that glistened under the rays of an unclouded 
sun and by its rapid melting kept the rivers well su])plied with 
water. 

"From Kings river to the Four Creeks the si;rface of the 
ground shows but few undulations and may be. considered as 
nearly level. The soil contains a large proportion of clay and 
must necessarily become soft and miry during the rainy season. 
Al)out three nnles northward of Elbow creek a large area of 
surface is composed almost wholly of clay without any admixture 
of sand or gravel and has evidently been nearly fluid in the wet 
season. This was shown by the deep tracks of animals in the 
then hard, sun-baked surface, and by great numbers of skeletons 
of cattle that have smik in the deep, Hiick nuul and been left 



18 TULAEE A}<D KINGS COUNTIES 

there to die of starvation. Their wliitened liones stood uprinlit 

in the clay like posts around a srave. The drying up of this 

clayey ground has produced deep slirinkage cracks and fissures 

similar to those observed in the rich soils around tlie bay of 
San Francisco. 

"Four Creeks: From the level of the arid and treeless plain 
(what is now our richly productive tree and vine covered Alta 
district) Iiounded on the west by equally barren mountains, we 
made a sudden descent of about ten feet to the bottom land of 
Four Creeks. Here the aspect of the landscape suddenly changed. 
Instead of the brown, parched surface of gravel, to which the eye 
is accustomed on the surrounding plains, we iind the ground hid- 
den from view by a luxuriant growth of grass and the air fragrant 
with the perfume of flowers. The sound of flowing brooks and 
the notes of the wild birds greet the ear in strange contrast with the 
rattle produced by the hot wind as it sweeps over the dried weeds 
and gravel of the plain. 

"The whole scene is overshadowed by groves of majestic oaks 
and the eye can wander down long avenues of trees until lost in 
the shadows of their foliage. This scene of natural beauty is the 
result of natural irrigation, the ground being abundantly watered 
by the Pi-piyuna river, which supplies the water that forms the 
Four Creeks * * * In fact, a broad delta is here formed between 
the Ti;lare lake and the mountains, and the profuse vegetation 
may not only be referred to the presence of water, but to the 
fertility of the soil, which is alluvial and is frequently enriched 
by overflows of the creeks." 

Visalia at this time was practically situated in a jungle sur- 
rounded by a swamp. On the plains beyond and in the more open 
portions of the oak foi'est, deer, elk and antelope abounded. Here, 
too, were numerous bands of wild horses. 

CajJt. Thomas H. Thompson, in his history of Tulare county thus 
graphically speaks of these: "The region, too, as early as the summer 
of 1850, had been visited by large numbers in the pursuit of wild 
horses, these being in droves of thousands on the plains and about the 
lake. Westward but a short distance were the great ranchos of 
the Spanish period and from these the Indians had driven large 
bands of horses which became wild on the plains and increased in 
vast numbers. These animals in their wild freedom, their grace and 
beauty, their long flowing manes and tails, their speed and numbers, 
had attracted the attention and won the admiration of the immigrant 
of 1849, as he, with feeble ox or wornout mule, passed from the 
southern deserts through the valley on his painful journey to the 
mines farther north. He was fascinated with the beautiful and 



TULARP] AND KINGS COUNTIES l!) 

roiuautie siylit, as great trooi)8 ut" the fat and glossy animals gal- 
lo]>ed past. Many of these immigrants and many other adventurous 
spirits returned the following year in the hoi)e of wealth by captur- 
ing the wild horses of the Tulare i)lains. Large corrals of brush and 
fence and tule with branching wings were constructed, pits were 
excavated and other devices were essayed; fleet horses with skillful 
riders with lassos were emi)loyed, and all the efforts possible were 
made to capture the wild horses. Many were taken, a comparative 
few were tamed and subdued to use; great numbers were killed, and 
so vigorous was the onslaught that but a year or two elajised when 
the wild horse was a rarity in the valley. They were beautiful 
animals, and in numbers a grand sight in their wild state, but when 
captured difficult to tame, always dangerous to handle, skittish and 
nervous, retaining during life their wild and untamable spirit. At 
least, such is the experience the writer of this had with the wild 
horses from the Tulare in 1850." 



20 TULARE AXD KlXfJS (OrXTIES 



CHAPTER II 
INDIAN WAR OF '56 

In the growtlt of the settlement Indians materially aided. They 
were docile, frieudl\', willing to work and were employed in taking 
care of stock and in farm and household work. And yet in 1856 the 
settlers had trouble with them of so serious a nature as to develoj) 
into what has been called the "Indian War." 

For an account of this we are i)rineii>ally indebted to Stephen 
Barton, writing in 1874, when the principal actors in the drama were 
still alive and he had every opportunity to obtain an accurate version 
of the matter. Additional facts secured through the researches of 
George W. Stewart in 1884, are linked in with the narrative which 
we }iresent here. 

In the spring of this year there came a rumor that a large l)and 
of cattle on Tule river had been stolen by Indians and driven off. 
Without investigation hurried preparations for war were at once 
begun. Scores of young bloods were ready to spring to the service 
of their country at once. Now, the Indians were generally employed 
by the settlers in farm work of all kinds, in the care of stock and as 
household servants, and were proving themselves honest and trust- 
worthy. Therefore, a few of the settlers conceived the idea of hear- 
ing both sides of the story and inquired of the Indians what they 
knew of the stealing, and were soon astmiished to find that as a 
matter of fact, no cattle had been stolen. The Indians said a young 
man by the name of Packwood had married an Indian girl and that 
according to their custom her tribe had assembled for a feast. Pack- 
wood contributed a yearling calf taken from his father's herd. 
Thus dwindled to almost nothing the rumor that five hundred cattle 
had been stolen. 

Nathan Dillon, Wiley Watson, Mr. Kenney and several otliers, 
feeling that it was an outrage to drive the Indians to the wall on 
so slight a pretext, undertook to remonstrate. These men were among 
the most high-minded and substantial citizens of the county, but 
their arguments proved Avithout avail. The tribe camped a mile 
below Visalia were ordered to surrender their arrows and to move 
their camp up to the western edge of the town. A party of 
mounted men went to the camp of the Yokos, near Exeter, and with 
yells and shots dispersed the Indians there, who fled, terror-stricken, 
to the swamps. A band of ruffians met one Indian on the road near 
Outside Creek and killed him without provocation. 

A crowd of lawless men in Visalia conceived the idea of be- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 21 

siej^iiig a caiiiii ol' aliout I'di'ty uiianiicd and frii'iidly Indians ol' all 
ages and sexes, ahout two miles east of town, and of i)nttin,<i- them to 
death l)y ni.iilit. D. B. James and a few others, liearin.y- of this 
diabolical scheme, hronght the Indians into town where tliey conld 
receive ihe i)rotection of those averse to the shedding of innocent 
blood. 

Meantime, the tocsin of war continned to sonud. Settlers and 
miners from distant parts gathered and a military organization was 
effected nnder the command of Captain Demasters. These prepara- 
tions frightened the Indians and they fled to join their companions 
on Tnle river. The coimnand of Demasters, nnmberiug tifty or sixty 
men, started in jtnrsnit and the same day a party of nine mounted 
men followed the trail of a hand of sixty Tejon Indians, who were 
traveling southward in the direction of the White river. Cai)tain 
Demasters' comi^any, after reaching Tnle river, continued uj) the 
north fork several miles, where columns of smoke pointed out to 
them the location of the camp. They found the Indians occupying 
a strong iDositiou, which, to their surprise, was well fortified. The 
location was admirably chosen, and the defences would have done 
credit to an experienced military engineer. A line of breastworks 
from two to four feet high, composed of boulders and brush, extended 
a distance of eiglity rods along the face of a hill at the head of a 
little cove, or jdain. Immediately in the front of the position the 
ground was rough and l)roken, but to reach it it was necessary to 
traverse the open i)lain mentioned, exposed to a fire from behind 
the fortification. At either end, and in the rear of the defences, 
was a dense thicket of clmparral extremely difficult to i>enetrate. 
The position was defended by a force numbering in the neighborhood 
of seven hundred warriors. 

Demasters, confident of the superiority of his men, small as 
their numbers were, ordered an attack. To protect themselves 
against the arrows of the Indians while attempting a breach of this 
enclosure, a portion of the troops had uniformed themselves in a 
sort of jjetticoat made of duck, jiadded inside with cotton. The 
petticoat brigade inarched boldly to the fray, but their shields ]iroved 
more vulnerable than anticijiated and the whites made a precipitate 
retreat to a ])oint about a mile distant to await re-enforcements. 

The party of nine men previously spoken of, on the trail of 
the Tejon Indians, ke])t in their saddles all day and night, and 
about daylight on the following morning, near where the village of 
Ducor is now situated, came upon the Indian camp. The dogs began 
barking and one of the Indians, painted and decked with feathers, 
stepped forward to a little knoll that commanded a view in all direc- 
tions, to ascertain the cause of the disturliance. John \V. Williams, 
afterwards cily marshal of \'isalia for several veai's, directed the 



22 TULARE AND KIXGR COUNTIES 

man nearest liini, who had a liHe, ti) slioot. The Indian dropped 
dead, and the Americans charged, firing- ra])idly at the Indians, who 
scattered preci]>itately, leaving five dead. Williams and party tlien 
rode l)ack to Tide river to join the force under Demasters. It was 
the supposition at the time that this i)arty of Tejon Indians had 
l)een im])Iicated in cattle stealing in Frazier valley, and had gone on 
a marauding expedition to White river to massacre the few whites 
living along the stream; liut nothing was heard of them afterwards, 
and as they had a few women with them, they were probably only 
returning home to their own tribe. 

When the party of whites rejoined tlie command under Demas- 
ters, it was decided to dispatch Williams to Keyesville for assist- 
ance. Williams set out inunediately, going by way of Lynn's valley, 
Poso Ulat and (xreenhorn mountain. At Lynn's valley he changed 
horses and William Lynn, after whom the valley was named, agreed 
to accompany him i)art of the way. During their ride, after dark, 
through a heavily timbered region, where bears were i)lentiful, an 
incident occurred that is worthy of note. After riding a short dis- 
tance into the forest they heard a noise behind, and turning, saw a 
large, black animal following them. Williams was mounted on a 
fractious mustang which became frightened and darted up the steep 
mountain side, but floundered back into the trail. Soon they reached 
a small opening and here they determined to try the eflfect of a 
shot at the briite, which followed them persistently. L^^Tin dis- 
charged a load of buckshot and the l)ear fell at the first fire, greatly 
to their relief. 

Sixty miners from Iveyesville armed themselves and accom- 
panied Williams back. On the return the '"bear" killed by Lynn 
was found to i)e a large black mule owned by a settler. It took 
$90 to square with the mule's owner, but that was the least of it. 
For a long time afterwards the mere mention of "bear oil" was 
sufficient to cause either Williams or Lyini to stand treat and before 
the joke wore out it had cost them in the neighborhood of $500. 

When the Keyesville party arrived the entire force, numbering 
one hundred and forty, was placed under the command of W. (!. 
Poindexter, sherifT of the county, and a second assault made. During 
this attack two young Americans, Danielson and St. John, were 
severely wounded and one other, Thomas Falbert, was shot in 
the th.igli. These were the only whites injured. The attack ])roved 
futile and Poindexter ordered his command to fall back. A ]iortion 
returned to A'isalia, the remainder remaining encamped nearby 
awaiting re-enforcements. Of the force which returned to Visalia 
Ste]ihen Darton says: "Now connnenced one of the most disgrace- 
ful scenes connected with the history of this valley. Having inglor- 
iously fled from the Held of battle, this force now sought a cheap 



TULARP: and kings counties 23 

l)laii of rt'ti'ieviii.n' a rejuitation for lieroisiii hy tiu-niii,!j,' on those 
citizens who liad counseled moderation and fair dealins"'. The Msalia 
Indians liad heen conipelled to surrender their arms and cam]) at 
the edge of town. The same autliority which required this now 
required that tliose wlio o])j)osed the war should, at tlie peril of 
their own lives, as well as of the lives of the Indians involved, 
convey the Indians out of the settlement. Dillon, Watson, Keeney, 
Judge Baker, the Matthews and several others were the men who 
now found their lives imperiled hy the fury of a lawless mol), for 
no other reason than that of having used words of moderation during 
a moment of i)0])ular frenzy. * * * Dillon gave $10 and a 
thousand j^ounds of flour, the Matthews gave fiour, and the other 
l)arties named gave in iJrojiortion and Jim Bell was hired to take 
a heavy ox team and haul the i)oor outcasts to Kings river." 

The "soldiers" left in camj) occupied themselves in searching 
out and destroying the caches of jn-ovisions which the Indians had 
made at ditTerent ]ioints along the foothills. These were found 
without difficulty, as they were usually placed in the forks of oak 
trees and covered with thatch. 

In a few days a company from Millerton, under connnand of 
Ira Stroud, and one from Coarse (rold Gulch under connnand of 
John L. Hunt, arrived. From Fort Miller was sent a detachment 
of twenty-live soldiers under Captain Livingston, bringing with 
them a small howitzer; and from Fort Tejon half as many mounted 
cavalry under the command of Alonzo Ridley, an Indian sub-agent. 
Captain Livingston assumed the chief command of the force which 
now numbered about four hundred and comprised nearly all the 
able-bodied men of the valley. After all had reached camp a con- 
sultation was held and it was agreed to divide the command into 
four divisions and attack the Indians at daybreak the following 
morning, from the front, rear and both flanks. Parties were sent 
out to view the country so that the several divisions might be 
guided to their respective positions without confusion, and Ca))tain 
Livingston with his soldiers and about sixty volunteei-s ascended 
an eminence connuanding the Indian fortification in order to select 
the most advantageous position for mounting their howitzer. 

The Indians unexpectedly made a vigorous attack on this 
party, precipitating the engagement. Livingston ordered a charge 
and with his officers, led the men in. They forced their way througli 
the brush, at the same time firing upon the Indians, who liecame 
demoralized and fled from their strong position into the mountains 
where they had loft their women and children. The Americans con- 
tinued the jjursuit for several days but, failing to discover another 
caju]) or any large body of Indians, retired to the valley. Several 
dead bi'aves were found inside the fortilical ion and (here was evi- 



24 TULARE AXl) KINGS COUNTIES 



deuce of many liaviui;' lieeii liunie oif through the )n•u^sh. This was 
the last real engagement and the loss to the Indians in killed and 
wounded from the first hreakiiig out of hostilities was estimated 
at about one hnudi-ed. 

Although the whites i^osted detachments to prevent the Indians 
from returning to the valley, several ]5arties of mounted Indians 
succeeded in reaching the plains at night and killed or drove off 
quite a number of cattle. They also burned a few houses in the 
foothills, and all l)ut one along the Tule river and Deer creek, 
thirteen in number, the owners having deserted them for the time 
being. These raids continued for several weeks, until William Camp- 
bell, the sub-agent at Kings river, sought the Indians out in tiie 
mountains and found them willing to come to terms. The war liad 
lasted six weeks, when the Indians returned to the valley and they 
have remained friendly from that time to the i)resent day, althougli 
a little more than a decade later, a few murders committed on 
Tule river caused the government to send troops from San Francisco 
and force the Indians of that section onto a reservation set apart 
for them. 

George Stewart says: "Thus ended the Tule river war of 
1856; a war that might have been ju-eveuted had there been an 
honest desire on the part of the white settlers to do so, and one 
that brought little glory to those who participated therein. The 
responsibility cannot now be fixed where it properly belongs. Pos- 
sibly the Indians were to blame. Certainly the whites were not blame- 
less, and it is too seldom, indeed, that they have been in the many 
struggles with the aboriginal inhalutants of this continent." 

The period between 1854 and the beginning of the Ci\-il war 
was chiefly remarkable for the discovery of gold and the mining 
excitement and boom following, and for the Indian war of 1856. 

D. B. and Brigham James made the tirst discovery of the 
precious metal in 1853 at Kern river. A stampede followed in which 
several thousand miners ]iartici})ated. Nearly all returned disap- 
pointed. However, other discoveries at White river, Keyesville, 
Owens river, in the Slate range and in the Coso district caused other 
mining booms so that for some seven or eight years there was a 
large population of miners, and the supplying of their wants liecame 
an important feature of business. 

Two trails were cut across the Sierra Nevada mountains over 
which pack trains carrying supjjlies were sent. A wagon road was 
also constructed from Visalia through Keyesville to Lone Pine and 
Fort Independence. 

As early as 1858 there were three quartz mills in operation in 
the Kern river district. These, by the way, had a greater value 
according to the assessor's figures than all the taxable real estate 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 25 

in the oounty. A few years later several other .stanip uiills were 
constructed to mill the ore of the Coso and Owens river districts 
and the freighting of supplies became a Imsiness of great magnitude. 

Unfortunately, while rich strikes were found in all these localities, 
it appeared that the gold generally was found either in pockets or in 
leads that "])inch('(l out," and no ])ermanent wealth ])roducing camps 
resulted. 

INDIAN TKOITBLES IN OWENS EIVEK DISTHICT 

The war of ISoG, with its final engagement at Battle mountain, 
settled completely all trouble with Indians in Tulare county i)roi)er, 
or that portion lying on this side of the Sierra Nevada mountains. 
For many years, however, sporadic trouble in the Owens river 
valley caused much uneasiness to our people. At times these as- 
sumed such magnitude that several troops of regular cavalry were 
employed to subject the lighting red men. 

Nearly every Visalian of prominence was at this time interested 
in either the Coso or Owens river mines. Valuable cargo trains 
were at all times on the road and the menace to these as well as to 
the lives of' smaller prospecting parties at times assumed serious 
proportions. These troubles culminated in 1862 and 1863. It is 
impossible to obtain sufficient data to give a connected account of 
the different uprisings, but the dangerous character of the warfare 
and the difficulties in the way of providing protection to settlei's 
and miners may be judged by the following: 

In the spring of 1862, ^'isalians sent a jiarty with stores of 
arms and ammunition to render assistance and gather information. 
Warren Wassen reported in part as follows: "Being unable on 
ray arrival at Amora to obtain provisions or transportation for the 
company organized there to receive the arms sent in my charge, I 
was compelled to leave them and proceed, accompanied by Lieu- 
tenant Nol)le and his command of fifty mounted men. AVe arrived 
at the upjier crossing of Owens river on the evening of A]u-il 6. 
On the next morning we met with Colonel G. P^vans witli Tiientenants 
French and Oliver; Captain Wynne of his connnaud having ))een 
left with seven men to garrison the stone fort forty miles below. These 
were under Colonel Mayfield of Visalia. 

"It appeared that during the past winter the Indians had been 
in the lial)it of killing cattle, which had led to the killing of some 
Indians, after wliich the Indians a\aih'd themselves of every ojiitoi'- 
tunity to kill wliite,s. 

"The whites finally collected their cattle at a jioiiit about tliii-fy 
miles above the lake, fortified themselves and sent messengers to 
Visalia and Carson for relief. They were reinforced by a jiarty of 
eighteen men who left Amora on March 28. About noon on the (itli 
there was a verv lnisk engagement in which C. J. Pleasants of 



■26 TULAKE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Amora. Mr. Morrison of Msalia and Slieriff Scott of Mono county 
were killed. The whites took refuge in an irrigating ditch, whenoe 
they fired, inflicting some damage. At night, after the moon went 
down, tlie Indians ceased firing and the whites retreated, leaving 
behind seventeen or eighteen of their horses and considerable am- 
munition and provisions. 

"Colonel Evans the next day met this i)arty and persuaded 
about forty-five of them to return to the pursuit. The remainder 
retreated to the fort. Our i)arty joined that of Colonel Evans and 
we camped that night on the battleground of the previous day. The 
next day, about noon, the Indians were re])orted located in a canyon. 
The command was divided into three columns, one under Colonel 
Evans, one under Lieutenant Noble and the other under Colonel 
Mayfield. "We proceeded up the mountain, facing a terrific snow- 
storm which prevented our seeing three yards ahead of ns. Failing 
to find Indians, we returned to camj). After dark the Indians were 
located by their campfires as being in a canyon about a mile north 
of the one we had ascended, and in the morning a reconnoitering 
party, under Sergeant Gillispie, was sent out. After advancing 
some three hundred yards they were fired upon. Gillisi)ie was 
instantly killed and Corporal Harris severely wounded. 

"Lieutenant Noble was sent to take possession of the moun- 
tain to the left of the canyon. This ))osition he gained with difficulty, 
facing a destructive fire and, unable to maintain it without severe 
loss, was forced to retreat. Colonel Mayfield, who accom])anied 
him, was killed. 

"The whole party under Colonel Evans were forced to retreat 
down the valley, the Indians following. . Colonel Evans, being with- 
out i)rovisions, was comjielled to return to his former post near 
Los Angeles. Lieutenant Noble accompanied him as far as the 
fort for the purpose of escorting the citizens in this direction out 
of the valley with their stock, which numbered about four thousand 
head of cattle and twenty-five hundred head of sheep. 

"There wei'e not over twenty-five Indians engaged in this fight 
Imt they wei'e well armed and from the nature of their iiosition 
could have held it against any odds." 

In the following year numerous other tiutbreaks occurred, ^'^isalia. 
again despatched a wagon-load of arms to i)rotect the Coso mines. 
In the skirmishes of this season, the whites were generally suc- 
cessful. 

In one battle the Indians jiosted themselves in a ravine near 
the lake, whence they were dislodged and utterly defeated after an 
engagement lasting over four hours. Only a small number made 
their esca]ie. Of these, "Joacpiin Jim," a noted chief, succeeded 
in reaching a rancheria near Msalia where he was killed while trv- 



TULARE, AND KINGS (^OUNTIES 27 

ing' to escape capture l)y a detacliineiit of soldiers sent to l)riny 
bim in. 

In July, 1863, tlie Owens river Indians were as a body tbor- 
ougbly sul)dued. Practically the entire tribe, to the number of nine 
Imudred, were marched to the Tejon Indian reservation. They 
were escorted by one hundred cavalry men under connnand of C'a])- 
tains McLaughlin, Noble and Ropes. 

Minor outl)reaks and outrages continued to occur for a few 
years following, since which time a lasting peace has ensued. 

HOSPITAL ROCK 

About ten miles above Tliree Rivers, on the middle fork of 
the Kaweah river near the present extensive construction works of 
the Mt. Whitney Power company, stands an enormous rock, under- 
cut in sucji a way as to form a considerable shelter. 

It is covered with the painted sign writing of a prehistoric race 
and until recent years was the abiding i)Iace for a settlement of 
Indians. The name "H()si)ital" rock arose through an accident 
that befell A. Everton in 1873 or 1874. Mr. Everton, in company 
with George Cahoon, was hunting and trai)]>ing in the vicinity and 
had out several set guns for bear. One morning the finding of 
fresh blood on the trail indicated a wounded bear and Everton 
started to return to camp to get dogs. On the way he accidentally 
s]inmg one of the set guns, receiving the load in his leg, a nasty 
woimd from which he could scarcely have recovered bad it not been 
for tb.e Indians. These carried him to camp and the scpiaws nursed 
him back to health, applying such embrocations of herbs as were 
suited to the case. As Hospital Rock it has therefore since been 
known. 



28 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

CPIAPTER ITT 
THE EFFECT OF THE CIVIL WAK ON TI'LAHE COI'NTY 

"When the Civil war broke out Tulare county was peopled lar.nely 
by southerners. In addition to the permanent settlers there were 
(piite a number of stockmen from Texas and Arkansas who had 
driven their cattle here for the piirpose of fattening them and of 
hiter drivino- them on to the Marii)osa mines to sell. 

Sympathy for tlie South was very strong and yet the peo]>le 
here did not feel called upon to take an active part in the rebel- 
lion. They were now citizens of the sovereign state of California, 
which had no cause for revolt. Their homes and property were 
here secure; personally they had no (|uarrel with the government. 
The counsel of the cooler heads was to be moderate in speech and 
quiet in demeanor, confining their activities to the passing of resolu- 
tions condemning the action of the Republican party, and objecting 
to the coercion of the South. This course of action naturally did 
not appeal to the younger hot-blooded element. They wanted action 
and the young bloods went around with chips on their shoulders 
and hurralied for Jeff Davis. There were not lacking among the 
supporters of the Union cause those also whose blood ran wai'm 
and who were quick to take offense and eager to resent insults. 

If auythiug more was needed to cause trouble to start it was 
whiskey, and there was whiskey galore. At every corner was a 
saloon — some Union, some Rebel. Courage and recklessness were 
purchased freely and street brawls l^ecame common. 

Following a request of the Union men for protection, a com- 
pany of troops was sent into Visalia to maintain order. The ar- 
rival of these by no means ])ut a stop to brawls, altercations and 
street disturbances. Many bullies were among the number and these, 
knowing tlie irresistible i)ower that lay behind their organization, 
became very insulting and overbearing in their conduct, esjiecially 
when under the influence of li(|uor. 

A ]iarticularly disgraceful e])isode occurred on the 4th of 
July. A crowd of drunken soldiers filled one of their wooden 
canteens with whiskey, draped around it the American flag, and 
marched up and down the street demanding of each person they 
met that he drink with them to Abraham Ijincoln and the Union. 
Those refusing, among whom were Wiley Watson, Doctor Riley 
and John Williams, prominent citizens, were arrested and taken to 
Camp Babliitt. 



TULARP] AND KINGS COUNTIES 29 

UNION MEETING HELD 

On ]May 25, 18()1, in response to a call which was signed by 
more than one hnndreil names, the Union men of Visalia and vicin- 
ity met in mass meeting at the court Iiouse and exjiressed their 
adherence to the cause. The meeting was called to order by S. R. 
Dummer, who nominated AV. N. Steuben for president. This motion 
was carried and ^\r. Steulien took the chair. Messrs. D. R. Doug- 
lass. Joseph H. Thomas, D. G. Overall and Peter Dean were chosen 
vice-presidents and James 11. Lawrence and H. G. McLean secre- 
taries. 

Previous to the reguhir i)roceediugs of the meeting Miss Louisa 
Kellenberg, lieautifully attired as the Goddess of Liberty, came 
forward and presented on behalf of the ladies of Visalia a beautiful 
national flag made of silk. The banner was received by A. J. 
Atwel], who returned thanks in an eloquent speech. 

S. R. Duunner, J. M. Hayes, E. E. Hewitt, F. Bacon and B. B. 
Lawless were apjjointed a committee on resolutions and after a 
short speech by S. C. Brown, they presented a set which were 
adopted. Among the resolutions were these -. 

"That the constitution of the United States is not a league or 
confederacy of states in their sovereign capacity, but a government 
of the i)eople of our whole country founded on their adoption, and 
creating direct relations between itself and the peojile. 

"That no state authority has ])ower to dissolve these relations. 

"That we are opposed in the i)resent condition of affairs to 
the formation of a Pacific rejniblic, and will discourage any attempt 
to induce California to violate her allegiance to the Union." 

.SOUTHERN SYMPATHIZERS MEET 

In the following month, June, a nuiss meeting of those espous- 
ing the cause of the Confederacy, or at any rate believing in the 
doctrine of states' rights, was held. 

Tins meeting was held in a gi'ove near the courthouse, where 
seats and a rostrum had been provided, and was very largely 
attended. W. D. McDaniel had been chosen marshal of the day 
and the audience formed in jirocession in front of Warner's hotel 
and marched to the scene to the tune of Yankee Doodle. 

Thomas R. Davidson was elected president ami Messrs. Wiley 
Watson, William Coddington, Cai)t. E. Hunter, Robert Conghran, 
R. K. Nichols and R. P.. Lawless vice-jnesidents. R. P. Gill and 
R. C. Redd were chosen as secretaries. The committee on resolu- 
tions, consisting of Joseph II. Clark, E. E. Calluran, W. A. Russell, 
William B. Poer, Burd Lawless, L. T. Sheppard, James L. Wells 
and Wiley Coughran, ])resented the following, which were adopted. 

"Resolved, That as American citizens imbued with a spirit of 
fidelity to the constitution and the laws and seeking only tlic hajv 



;^0 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

piuess, ijrosperity aud preseivatiou of our common t-ountry, vre 
deem it our duty in view of the declared hostility to the South aud 
her institutions by the Republican administration to oppose the 
same by all constitutional means; that we regard President Lincoln 
as the exponent of a sectional party whose avowed policy towards 
one section of our country, pursued through a series of many years, 
has been the fruitful source of all our national evils; that the war 
now being waged by the Republican administration is unjust, inhu- 
man and unconstitutional, having for its object the subjugation 
of states, the obliteration of state lines, the ])olitical degradation 
of their people and the deprivation of their jtroijerty, and shouhi 
meet and merit the just condemnation of all true friends of con- 
stitutional liberty; that we believe that the best interests of the 
country demand, and her iiolitical existence as a nation depends 
upon the speedy inauguration of a peace i>olicy characterized l)v a 
spirit of concession and an honorable compromise as the onlv proper 
basis for the satisfactory adjustment of the differences between the 
northern and southern states." 

On May 2:^. 18(U, a meeting was held at Music Hall in Visalia 
for the purpose of organizing a military company. G. A. Botsford 
presided. It was decided to call it the Msalia Mounted Rifles, and 
the following officers were elected: Oaptain, G. W. Warner; first 
lieutenant, J. H. Kennedy; second lieutenant, G. ^Y. Roberts; third 
lieutenant, Robert Baker; sergeants, William C. Hill, William Ely, 
E. Peppard, G. Francis and T. J. Preston; corporals, H. Cha]mian, 
H. E. McBride, William Baker, Orrin Barr; ]iermanent secretary. 
Horace Thomas. 

It will be noted that there was no lack of officers. 

In I860 a volunteer cavalry company called the Tulare Home 
Guards, was organized at Outside Oreek with sixty-one members. 
The following officers were chosen: Captain, W. S. Powell; first 
lieutenant, George W. Duncan; senior second lieutenant, J. T. Col- 
lins; junior second lieutenant. William C. Deputy. 

Company D, Second Cavalry, under command of Lieutenant- 
Colonel Evans, arrived in September, 1862, crossing the mountains 
from Indei)endence by trail. A wngon-load of melons was donated 
them. In ( )ctol)er they took ui) headquarters at Camp Babbitt, a 
mile north of "N'isalia, now known as the "Cain" tract. 

Com))any I, Second Cavalry, arrived from Placerville in Octo- 
l)er, and Comi)auy E, Second Cavalry, called the Tuolumne Rangers 
and supposed to be the ones who destroyed the office of the Etjual 
Rights Expositor, completed the brigade of regular troops. It 
would appear that three com])anies of federals and two of juilitia 
should have been am))le to preserve the peace, but it seemed that 
they rather served to provoke distu!bances and many ipiarrels icsult- 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 31 

in.U' fatally were laid directly to their iireseuce. 

Ill accordance with the appeal of the sanitary commission for 
funds to aid the sick and wounded, W. N. Steuben took the matter 
in charge at ^''isalia, J. M. Harer at Tule River, J. M. Keyes at 
White Ri\er and J. F. Ewing at Kern River. About $300 was 
raised. 

On October 27, 18(52, Senator Baker, Tulare county's most 
prominent citizen, was arrested, charged with discouraging enlist- 
ments ill the United States army and of uttering treasonable senti- 
ments, and Ix'iiig denied a ])arole, was placed in the guardhouse. 

THE KILLING OF VOGLE 

On November 2i>, 1S()2, Eugene Vogle, a soldier of Company 
I, Second Cavalry, California ^^olunteers, was shot and killed by 
Frank Slawick, l)artender at the Fashion saloon. This ]ilace, kept 
by "Ki" O'Neal, was known as a "rebel" saloon and threats had 
been made by soldiers to do up its proprietor. About midnight, a 
crowd of drunken soldiers entered and ordered drinks for which 
they declined to pay. They then ordered cigars, which Slawick 
refused them, saying "I have no cigars for your kind." A row 
started and Slawick reached under the bar for his gun, which was 
accidentally discharged. A fusilade followed in which Vogle was 
killed. Slawick was shot in the arm and two soldiers were slightly 
wounded. O'Neal was struck in the forehead by a glancing shot 
and knocked senseless. 

Slawick made his escajie and was taken by "Uncle" Billy 
Cozzens to his place near Lime Kiln (now Lemon Cove) to be cared 
for. A meeting of citizens and officers was held in conseqiience 
of the affray to devise means of keeping the peace. Col. George 
S. Evans, in command of Camp Babbitt, said if the soldiers were 
the aggressors he would punish them, or give them over to the 
civil authorities, but he would punish none for resenting insults to 
them or the flag. He would expect them to protect themselves. 

KILLING OF STROBLE 

On August fi, 1863, Charles Strolile, sergeant of Com])aiiy I, 
Second Cavalry, California A'olunteers, was shot and killed by 
James L. Wells. 

It ap})ears that the trouble started near the corner of Main 
and Church streets. Tilden Reid, who afterwards became sheriff, 
had been drinking some and yelled "Hurrah for Downey" (the 
Democratic candidate for Governor). Jim Donahue, a soldier, told 
him that he would shoot him if he said that again. This trouble 
caused (juite an embrogiio in which Wells joined. Reid was ar- 
rested and taken to the guardhouse at Camp Babbitt, and Wells 
started home. 



32 TULARE AND KINGS COFXTIKS 

He had beeu preceded by Doualme and Strohle, wiio. for tlie 
IJiirpose of picking a row, awaited him at the entrance to Knoble 
(S: Krafts restaurant (near Rouse & Sons' i)resent place of busi- 
ness). Donahue here kicked a chair at "Wells, which struck him in 
the leg, saying "I meant tliat for you." Wells declined to take up 
the ])roffered insult and walked on, Donahue and Stroble following, 
making insulting re)narks. Wells stepped inside the doorway of a 
tin shop at the corner of Main and Court streets, and, sheltering him- 
self behind a pillar, secured his revolver. Donahue saw this action 
and yelled, "Look out! he's got a gun!" Wells lired, killing Stroble 
and took repeated shots at Donahue, who escaped into the Union 
saloon across the street. A stray shot is said to have cut G. A. 
Botsford's necktie. 

Wells ran through the alley to the Overland stables (across 
the street from their present location) and secured a saddle horse 
which he rode to the edge of the swamp belt near the site of the 
sugar factory. AVhile this was going on. Bob Houston and Gordon 
Douglass, friends of AVells, drew their six-shooters and were taken 
in charge liy soldiers. Wells had narrow escapes from capture. At 
one time, when he was hiding under a log, several of tlie pursuing 
soldiers came up and sat on it. He wandered as far east as the 
Cottage postoffice, where his friend, Jesse Reynolds, secreted him 
and supplied him with provisions. He later disguised himself, got 
to San Francisco and from there went to Mexico. His relatives 
took up the matter and secured a change of venue to Merced county. 
whereu])on Wells returned, submitted to trial, and was acquitted. 

During the night following the affray. Wells' house in \'isalia 
was burned, a deed generally beliexed to have been committed by 
the soldier comrades of Stroble. 

THE BOWLEY AFFAIR 

Some time in '()3, a half-witted boy named Denny McKay, had 
secured a ])air of pants from a st)ldier, and was wearing them. Hugh 
McKay, a brother, happened along and said, "Hello, Denny, are you 
going to be a soldier.'" and made some contemi)tuous reference to 
the soldiery. Richard Rowley, a private of the Second Cavalry, 
took uj) the matter and chased McKay, who was unarmed, tiring 
as he ran. A volunteer, seeing the i^ursuit, also took a shot at 
McKay, but he escaped unharmed. 

On March 4, 1868, Rowley was assassinated in Portervillc while 
sitting at dusk before the fireplace in the hotel, the cause being at 
first attributed to the war-time incident. It develo])ed, however, 
that Rowley had an implacable enemy in one Smith Fine. Rowley, 
it was alleged, had gone to Fine's house in his absence and at the 
point of a revolver compelled Fine's wife to dance for his amuse- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 33 

ment. Fine was accjuitted of the murder, liowe\-er, tlirougli lack 
of evidence. 

DESTRUCTION 01-' NEWSPAPER PLANT 

In 1862 L. P. Hall and S. J. Garrison establislied a iiai)er in 
Visalia called the Civil Rights Expositor, later changing the name 
to The Eqttal Rights Expositor. The office was located above the 
Visalia House. It was a red-hot secession newspaper, ably edited 
liut extremely radical in its utterances, and at once gained great 
favor with its readers and ac(]uired a large circulation. 

On account of his open advocacy of the southern cause Hall 
was arrested and taken to Camp Babbitt, where he was forced 
to take the oath of allegiance. After this incident tlic editorials 
in the Expositor were more bitter and inflammatory than ever 
liefore, angering lieyond measure the soldiers and volunteers. Among 
the choice utterances were : 

"We have said that Abraham Lincohi has perjured himself, 
and have proved it. We now tell those who participate in this 
detestable war, to the extent of their support, that they participate 
with Lincoln in the crime of perjury." 

"Let our states' rights friend look around them and note the 
passion slaves of the President, who ])rate al)out rel)els and traitors, 
while they hug their chains with the servility of a kicked and cuffed 
hound. ' ' 

Dr. Davenport, owner of the building in which the printing- 
office was located, fearing that Hall's vituperative utterances would 
incite a riot and damage be done to his property, ordered them to 
leave the premises. The office was removed to Court street adjoin- 
ing the lot on which the Times office now stands. 

On the night of March 5, 1863, a party of soldiers from Camp 
Babbitt, together with a number of townspeople, entered the office, 
tied Garrison up, threw the type into the street and destroyed the 
printing presses. Guards were posted at the street corners to 
l)revent interference with the diversion. So resentful of this act 
were Hall and Garrison's friends in Mariposa that a jiarty of 
seventy or eighty armed men came down for the ])uri)ose of "clean- 
ing up" Camp Babbitt. These hid themselves in the swamp, ex- 
pecting to be reinforced from A'isalia. Cooler counsel among the 
leaders of the southern sympathizers here prevailed, however, and 
they were induced to disband and return to Marijiosa. 

Hall and Garrison for several years tried to get a l)i!l through 
the legislature compensating them for the money loss incurred, 
and, in 1868. succeeded in doing so. Governor Ilaight, however, 
vetoed the bill on the ground that the pro])erty had been destroyed 
by soldiers under the authority and control of the United States, 
for which the state was not responsible. 



:U TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

CHAPTER IV 
VISALIA 

Necessarily tlie history of Tulare county was to all intents and 
purposes, in the early period, the history of Visalia, as the activities 
of the entire i)oi)ulatiou centered here. 

The early Iieginninss are familiar. It will be remembered how, 
in 1852, alone in the wilderness, Nathaniel and Abner Vise located 
for a future homestead the site of the city; how the first immigrants 
thought it necessary to build a stockade to defend themselves from 
Indians. Also will be remembered Nat Vise's generous offer to 
donate his claim to the people if they would locate the coimty.seat 
here; how the offer was accejited and liy the election of 1853, 
ratified. 

The first enterprises tending to making a town here have also 
been detailed in the general history; how Baker started a stoi-e 
and Matthews a mill ; how a school and church and a two-story log 
jail, planked and "pinned with double tens" followed. 

Nearly three score years have ])assed since these things were, 
and here is only space for the bare mention of the milestones of 
l)rogress Visalia has since passed. Many of these, too, marking as 
well the jirogress of the county as a whole, are treated under sep- 
arate headings. Thus the first two causes tending toward increased 
population were the discovery of gold as early as 1856. and the 
establishment of the Overland stage route through the town in 
1859. For a number of years following the town showed a rapid, 
if what might be, perhaps, termed a hectic, growth. 

Those were the days of easy-going ways, the day of dollars 
easily acquired, easily s]ient. Between 1856 and 1860 it was esti- 
mated that from five and six thousand miners ]iassed through 
Visalia, en route to the gold fields. Outfitting and freighting and 
the accommodation and transportation of travelers develoj^ed into 
a business of magnitude. And the miners, whether going or com- 
ing, whether hopeful, successful, or discouraged, were always thirsty. 
and whether they had been lucky or unlucky, were still always ready to 
take another chance. 

And catering to these wants, saloons and gambling flourished; 
dance halls were enlarged, musicians imported. Faro, roulette, 
monte, poker and dice games all assisted in the general scheme of 
the retention of a goodly portion of the traveler's coin. And when 
the lull in mining began to make itself felt, the Civil war, with its 
pay days for soldiers and its grafting quartermasters, again made 




'im^ 



5 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 35 

life of tliis kind pleasant and in'otitable. New mines in the Owens 
River district were discovered and business flourished anew. 

Dnrini!,' tliese years, of course, the ])0])ulation had been increased 
by the addition of all classes of men. There were now keen law- 
yers, shi'ewd merchants, skilled physicians. There were teachers 
and ]irearhers. Two newsi)a])ers had been estal)lished, the Delta, 
by John Shannon in 1859, and the Equal Rights Expositor, by S. J. 
Garrison, in 1<S62. The Masons and Odd Fellows had organized. 
With it all, however, was lacking the element of stability. The fact 
was that although set in the midst of a most fertile section, and 
being the only town within a score of miles, the community, while 
apparently i)rosperous, was not really self-supporting. This arose 
from its location remote from markets and the lack of communica- 
tion and transportation facilities. For a few years retrogression 
set in. 

And now, liefore we considei' the next era, let us take a survey 
of the old town and try to visualize it as it existed before the war. 

A view taken from the Palace hotel corner on Main street, 
looking east, will serve for a foundation for a correct mental 
building of the picture. The Exchange hotel appears on the left 
and S. Sweet's store in the right foreground. Certainly it is a 
vision of ramshackle neglectfulness, of general unkemptness and 
untidiness. No sidewalks, no curbs, no cleanliness. 

Commencing on the south side of Main street, at the corner of 
Bridge, was located the general merchandise store of O. Reinstein, 
a two-story building, almost the only one in this neighborhood. The 
Birley and Pierce blacksmith sho}) adjoined on the west and at 
the corner was Swat and Wells emporium. 

At the corner now occuined by the balconies was a brick build- 
ing used as a general store by John G. Parker. The Cosmopolitan 
saloon was next in order, then a little brick drug store, ojteued by 
Henry Bequett(\ Then came a general store kept by a Mr. Johnson 
and at the Uhl corner, an old frame building housing the general 
merchandise store of D. K. Douglass. At the corner where is now 
located the Citizens bank, stood the Masonic Hall building, then 
Hockett's, then Rogers' stores. In the middle of the block was 
Keener 's butcher shoji, then the Fashion saloon, the Bostwick's tin 
shop. Around the corner, where is now the Ilarrell building, was 
Peter (Joodhue's stable. The National Bank site was occupied by 
the dwelling house of John Majors, which later made way for a 
two-story building erected by H. and I. Cohen, the lower floor used 
for the St. Charles saloon and the up])er for Music ITall. 

Commencing once more on Main street, o])i)osite our point of 
beginning, we find Turner's blacksmith shop occupying the site of 
the Ballon Imilding. Oji the flarvev House corner stood a two- 



36 TULARE AND KIXOS COUXTIKS 

story hiick Imilding rim as a hotel originally l)y L. R. Ketchuin 
and G. (i. Xoel. In 1858 (J. W. Warner assumed charge, calling it 
the Exchange hotel. 

At the American hotel corner was the apjjropriatcly named 
Deadfall saloon, dance hall and bowling alley. Between there and 
the corner was a dwelling house and then a restaurant and two 
stores, occupying the lower floo)- of a building located on a portion 
of the Visalia House site. 

The Delta office, built by Shannon, its first i)roprietor. stood at 
the corner now occupied l)y the National Bank; in the neighborhood 
of Lipscomb's pool liall was a two-story frame building occupied as 
the general store of H. Mitchell. At the Palace hotel corner stood 
Dick Billip's hotel, which later came to be called the Exchange 
hotel. Nothing now until about tlie site of the Carnegie library, 
where was located the steam flouring mill originally built by Wagg, 
later ojierated by Jack Lorenz, son-in-law of Dr. Matthews. 

On east Main, in the lilock where now the Santa Fe depot is 
situated, stood the Eagle hotel, kept tiy Capt. S. R. Dummer, and 
later by G. W. Warner. Matthews & Co. flour mill of hewn oak 
timbers, operated by a little turbine wheel set in the race, stood 
about where the present flouring mill stands. The wasteway cut 
across Main street and emptied into Mill creek near the depot site. 

Outside of some minor shops, the above constituted all the business 
houses, although a big stable and barn, surrounded liy a high brick 
wall, was built at the present location of Armory Hall by the Overland 
stage company in 1859, when the route was established through Vi- 
salia. Townsend's saloon, in the neighl)orhood of Huffaker's stables, 
also came into existence. 

It must be remembered that there were no sidewalks except 
those of plank in front of the different business establishments; 
there were no ])avements, no curl)s, no sewers, no lights. Remem- 
ber that this constituted the entire business section of town and that 
the dwellings, with the exception of a few lirick residences, such 
as Wiley Watson's and A. J. Atwell's, were mere shacks, scattered, 
separated from each other by dense growths of brush, weeds, briars 
and a general tangle of vegetation. Streets, while laid out, were 
not necessarily strictly followed where cut-offs enabled one to reach 
main roads by a more direct route. 

Siich was Visalia in the late '50s, and it was a good town and 
a growing town; there was life and gaiety, brisk business and 
abundant money. A spreading oak tree, just visible in the back- 
ground of the photograph, stood in the street at the corner of 
Bridge. The American flag, one juade by Mrs. G. W. Waiiier. 
was stretched from it to the Warner hotel and flung to the In-eeze 
for the first time in Visalia in 1856. 

The first firecrackers, imported in 1858, were liailed with delight 



TULARE AND KTXGS COUNTIES 37 

by the fun-luviii.i;- puiJiilace and sold readily at from $1 to $1.5(J 
a pack. Horee-racing was a sport in those days entered into with 
great enthusiasm. Local stock was used and a large i)ortion of the 
available cash was in the hands of stakeholders before the start was 
made. Sometimes the races were postponed until late in the day 
that visitors from a distance might all have a chance to arrive and 
"get their money up." Some pleasures were more expensive then 
than now. Seven dollars was the usual price for a ball ticket, al- 
though on exceptionally swell occasions, such as the o])ening of the 
St. Charles hotel, a $10 charge was made. 

That the love of "red licker," wdiile natural, and, in fact, essen- 
tial, might be carried to extremes and that therefore the ai>])etite 
should be somewhat curlied, was early recognized. The \^isalia 
Dashaway Association, for the furtherance of temperance, was 
formed and many able citizens joined, and speeches of impassioned 
eloquence were made. As some slight stimulant was necessary to 
exalt the mind to a degree of inspiration in the i)rei)aration of such 
speeches, and as it was necessary in some measure to recuperate 
after the violent physical effort of delivery, report hath it that 
some of the officers of this association were often inclined to over- 
rate their capacity for the cu]) that "brightens and invigorates the 
consciousness. ' ' 

We pass on. Came the Civil war. Of the duel to the death 
in the campaign preceding it ; of the organization of home guards 
and the coming of troops ; of the street lirawls and nmi-ders and 
house burnings and newspajjer destroying during the jieriod, there 
are accounts elsewhere. 

After the war, the need for rail transportation facilities made 
itself severely felt and for a long period of years untiring efforts 
were made by Visalia's leading citizens to secure some such. The 
production of wool was becoming important, wheat farming offered 
prospects but excessive freights caused development to halt. AVhen 
it became known that the Soutliern Pacific company had definitely- 
left Visalia off the map by leaving it seven miles to the east, R. K. 
Hyde, the leading financier of the city, with assistance from many 
enterprising citizens, built the Visalia and Goshen railroad, com- 
pleting it in 1875. 

In the meantime the city had been incor]K)rated. This measure 
had been defeated by \-()te at an election held in ISfiO, Ijut it was not 
until February 27, 1874, that the approval of the legislative act gave 
tlie rank of city to the town. The first officers were: S. A. Shep- 
pard, M. Mooney, I. A. Samstag, W. B. Bishop and W. G. Owen, 
trustees; J. C. Hoy, marshal and tax collector; Julius Levy, assessor; 
J. A. Nowell, school suiK'i'iiitendent and city clerk;- S. C. Brown, 
S. H. Collins, J. C. Ward and AV. F. Thomas, school directors, and 
A. Elkins, recorder. 

3 



38 TULARE AND KlXaS COUNTIES 

Arthur auil Jaiiit's Crowley esstahlished a water works system 
in 1875, gas works soon followed and electric lighting came in 1891. 

Increased railway facilities were necessary for growth and 
tardily came. The Visalia-Tulare steam motor road was Imilt 
by local capital; the Santa Fe, originally the San Joaquin \'alley 
railroad, arrived in 1896; the Southern Pacitie made connections 
with the east side branch at Exeter in 1897, shortly afterward 
taking over the Goshen- Yisalia road; in 1907 the Visalia Electric 
road to Lemon Cove, and now on to Woodlake and Redlianks, was 
built, and in 191"2 was inaugurated the Big Four electric railroad, 
which will connect Tulare, Porterville, AVoodville and Visalia. 

Prior to 1890 municipal imi^rovements were of a very minor 
character, in fact, only within the past few years have they become 
such as betits a modern, rapidly growing city. 

The prevention of the flood waters of Mill creek from over- 
flowing the town had always constituted a problem, and in 1891 
the channel was deepened and straightened and confined to a plank- 
covered flume, which answered with more or less success until the 
excessive high water of 190(5. During that season the town was 
repeatedly flooded and adequate piotective measures became neces- 
sary. For the purpose of securing immunity from this danger 
bonds in the sum of $70,000 were voted, and in 1910 was con- 
structed, according to the design of the city engineer, M. L. Weaver, 
a cement-lined concrete aqueduct over half a mile in length, the 
same covered for nearly all the distance with a re-enforced concrete 
construction. 

Prior to this, in 1902, a sewerage system extending throughout 
the city had been built at a cost of about $80,000, and a connnence- 
ment of street paving had been made in 1895, by the laying down 
of twelve blocks in the Inisiness section. 

In 1909 a very handsome and convenient city hall of mission 
design was built in re-enforced concrete, at a cost of $30,000. Among 
other recent municipal improvements we may cite the magnificent 
new high school, now building in the western part of town, to take 
the place of the $40,000 new building com]>leted in 1911, and burned 
to the ground in the same year. 

One of the serious passages in Visalia 's recent history has 
been the numerous agitations, controversies and elections over the 
liquor question. This matter first came before the voters in 1874, 
and the proposed no-license measure was defeated by a vote of 
178 to 120. About twenty years elapsed before the sentiment against 
saloons reached in-oportions. This became especially pronounced in 
190(1, when nearly all the precincts in the county outside of incor- 
porated towns voted "dry." 

After repeated efforts, the anti-saloon forces succeeded, in 1911, 
in inducing the city trustees to call an election for the purpose of 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 3!) 

securing by a test or "straw" vote, the sentiment of tlie people. 
Twelve Imndred votes were cast at this election, the "drys" win- 
nina,- l)y one hundred and forty-one. At the city election in April 
following, city trustees favoring no-liceuse were elected, the ma- 
jority in their favor being, howe\'ei', only about eighty. An ordi- 
nance closing saloons was immediately passed. 

The state legislature had in the meantime passed the Wyllie 
local option law, providing for a submission of the question to the 
people u]3on the filing of a petition signed by twenty-five per cent 
of the voters. The advocates of the saloon cause, confident that 
sentiment was changing in their fax'or, as shown by the recent vote, 
and that this would become more pronounced upon the falling off of 
business incident to the closing of saloons, determined to avail 
themselves of the provisions of the new law. 

A petition having three hundred and four signatures was filed 
and an election held July 17, 1911. The "wets" olitained a majority 
of six votes at this election, there Ijeing five hundred and sixteen 
votes for license, five hundred and ten against and nine thrown 
out on account of being blank or incorrectly marked. The city 
trustees decided that as the saloon advocates had not received a 
clear majority of all ballots placed in the box, the "drys'' had won, 
and refused to issue licenses. Intense bitterness was engendered 
by this action and the case carried into court on mandamus pro- 
ceedings. Judge "Wallace decided that the election was carried by 
the "wets," but that as the Wyllie law did not jirovide that the 
liquor traffic must be licensed following a majority vote, therefore 
the writ of mandamus would not lie. 

It was, in other words, oi)tional with the board to follow the 
expression of the will of the peoi)le. The trustees, standing on 
their legal rights, and justifying their action by the contention that 
illegal votes were cast, maintained their ])osition. The saloons 
therenjion gave up their fight for a time, but in the sjjring of 1912 
a final effort was made to secure a lease of life. This took the 
form of initiative legislation. An ordinance providing for the 
licensing of saloons under regulations so strict that it was thought 
that they would meet with the apjjroval of the less radical opposi- 
tion element was prepared, and the requisite number of signatures 
was affixed to a petition asking the trustees to call an election to 
determine whether or not it was the will of the people that the 
ordinance go into effect. At this election, held in April, 1912, 
women for the first time participated in municipal affairs. The 
measure was defeated overwhelmingly, thus finally settling a con- 
troversy that had existed for years. 

The fact that Visalia, the oldest town in the San Joaquin val- 
ley, has allowed some to distance it in population and Tuany to out- 
strip it in rapid growth has l)een the cause of connnent. 



40 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Tliree principal factors there are wliicli have contributed to 
this state of affairs. First, may be placed tlie fact of its not being 
on the main line of railway, although at present the facilities for 
shipment and for travel are the same as if it were on three main 
lines. Second, is the fact that laud in the vicinity has been held in 
large tracts by owners who did not desire to sell. Not until re- 
cently have any tracts suitable for colonization been placed on the 
market. Third, is the fact that elsewhere the prospective settler 
has in the past been able to find cheaper land. In many other locali- 
ties, lands of low original value were rendered suitable for settle- 
ment by irrigation or other enterprises, and with the cost of this 
and promoters' profits added, could still be sold at a low figure. 

In the rich delta sub-irrigated district, trilnitary to Visalia, land 
values on undeveloped tracts have been maintained for the reason 
that their conversion into income property was at any time an easy 
matter. The pressure of a flood of homeseekers is now at the bar- 
riers, and an exceeding growth and an increased prosperity will 
undoubtedly result. 

Visalia today is a busy and growing modern city of fiOOO in- 
habitants. In addition to the municipal imi)rovements ])reviously 
spoken of, such as the new city hall, new high school building, recent 
extensive street paving, adequate sewer system, etc., there is a 
handsome public library building, a delightful city park, a building 
in which are housed the chamber of commerce displays and which 
affords a meeting place for all civic bodies. 

The city is peculiarly ]ileasing to the eye on account of the 
extent of shade tree bordered streets. Situated as it is in the 
center of the sub-irrigated lielt, natural perennial green grasses 
flourisii and the lawns and foliage never indicate by failing verdure 
the ])arcliing el^'ects of sununer heat. Many oaks, remnants of the 
solid groves that once were a feature of the landscaije, remain and 
add to the charm. 

Quite a lai-ge number of pretentious residences, with carefully 
kept lawns and gardens, grace the environs. Cement sidewalks 
have generally been well extended towards the outskirts, aud the 
streets, outside the jiaved district, are usually oiled and kept in 
good order. 

In a business way, modern requirements are fully met. There 
are three banks with deposits of nearly $2,500,000; two canning 
factories ; two dried fruit packinghouses ; two creameries ; two green 
fruit packing concerns and a l)eet sugar factory. 

The amount of money expended by these concerns in payrolls 
and payments for the products of orchard, dairy and farm reaches 
an enormous total, aud forms the fouudation for permanent pros- 
perity. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 41 

CHAPTER V. 
TULARE COUNTY'S CITRUS FRUIT 

The eastern slo]ie of Tulare county is covered today witli al- 
most one continuous orange grove. In the amount of capital in- 
vested, the culture of citrus fruits is by far the most important 
industry in the county. In yearly revenue it equals or exceeds any 
other. 

Roughly speaking, thei'e are about twenty-seven thousand acres 
set to orauges and lemons, one-third of which is in bearing. The 
production last year was four thousand carloads, having a value 
of $2,500,000. A conservative valuation of these orchards with 
their equipment would be $13,500,000, and a fair estimate of the 
income when the jiresent acreage reaches bearing would be $7,500,000. 
This wonderful develo]nnent has been wholly accomplished within 
the past twenty years, but a few words relative to the very earliest 
efforts in this direction may prove of interest. 

The first orange tree planted in Tulare county was in 1860, when 
Mrs. H. M. White, in Erazier valley, planted the seed from an 
orange brought from the South Sea islands. As one passes now 
through miles of groves heavy T\atli golden fruit or laden with odorous 
blossoms, the symbolism of this act appeals to the imaginatiop 
It seems as if, endowed with the supernatural powers of one of 
the fates, she performed the ceremony of transferring to this 
inland vale some of the spicy fragrance and some of the easy 
opulence of those languorous isles. 

Returning to facts, Deming Gibben, in 1863, also ]ilanted a 
few orange trees in his yard at Piano. At dates not exactly known, 
Peter Goodhue set out a tree in Visalia and J. W. C. Pogue at 
Lemon Cove planted a few. To trace the extraordinary growth of 
the industry from those days until the present, when trainloads 
are shipped daily throughout the season, would fill a volume. And 
yet progress in the beginning was hampered in many ways. Pew 
of Tulare county residents believed in it. It was expensive, the 
cost even in the beginning reaching $300 per acre for bringing an 
orchard into bearing. The area of adaptable land was thought 
to be confined only to certain foothill slopes, or coves with certain 
kinds of exposure. Hog-wallow land was deemed unfit. Failure to 
obtain water on the first trial in some districts was considered evi- 
dence that none was there. But wlien numerous crops came into 
bearing and the fruit was lieing harvested some six weeks earlier 
than that from Southern California, when this fruit reached the 
eastern markets in time for Thanksgiving and Christmas markets 



42 TULARE AXD KINGS COUNTIES 

and sold for exceediiioly high jirices, there came visitors from tlie 
southern orange districts vrho perceived at a glance the great pos- 
sibilities of the section. 

In 1870 W. J. p]llis, county assessor, in liis statistical report 
submitted to the surveyor general, listed one hundred orange trees 
in the county. In making u]i his hirge total, however, he had re- 
course to including al)out ninety young trees still in the nursery. 
At this period there was no thought in the minds of anyone that 
orange growing would develop as a commercial industry. This did 
not occur until 1890. In that year George Frost, a prominent orange 
grower and nurseryman of Riverside, took a look at the county. In 
Southern California there existed a firm conviction tliat orange 
growing north of Tehachapi was impossible. While Mr. Frost 
looked at the country with doubtful eyes, he was more unprejudiced 
than the majority. Besides this, he was anxious to find a market 
for nursery trees. At the time he had on hand a large stock, which 
he was unable to sell. In the San Joaquin valley for Mr. Frost's 
inspection there were at the time the following groves only: at 
Porterville, five acres; at the ranch of H. M. White, a few trees; 
at Piano, one acre; at Lemon Cove, one and one-half acres; at 
Centerville, six acres; and at the old General Beale's place, south 
of Bakersfield, a five-acre tract planted to a general assoi-tment of 
citrus fruits. 

The prospects for a new district apj^ealed so strongly to Mr. 
Frost that he engaged in a deal with the Pioneer Land company 
of Porterville wherel)y, on land owned liy the corporation, he was 
to set out one liundred acres of orange trees and care for them 
for two years. Then he was either to buy the ]>roperty for $100 
per acre or the land conijiany were to repay him for the trees and 
labor expended. 

Immediately following the ex]n-ession of oinnion of Mr. Frost 
that the district was adapted to oranges, numbers i^repared to 
engage in it, and the next year witnessed a planting that would 
prove a commercial factor. Albert and Oliver Henry of Portei-- 
ville. who already had a few trees in bearing, ))ecanie the i)ioneer 
enterprising growers, and boosters for the Porterville district. 

In 1891 Cajit. A. J. Hutchinson, together with Messrs. Patten 
and Glassell, jnirchased the Jacobs' i)lace at Lindsay and in the 
following year set out three acres at Lindsay, which became known 
as the home jilace. In 1898 planting became general. So well 
pleased was Mr. Frost with his original venture at Porterville 
that he imrchased and iiroceeded to set out an additional tract of 
seventy-five acres. 

Captain Ilulcliiiison organized the Ijiudsay Land company, and 
proceeded to subdivide his tract into small holdings, agreeing to 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 43 

care for the oroves of non-residents. No ditch water for irrigating 
was avaihilile at Lindsay. Wells were therefore sunk and steam 
pumping plants installed, the first in the county. Water in al)und- 
ance was found at a de]ith of ahont seventy feet, which rose to 
within twenty feet of tlu' surface. The experiment generally dis- 
believed in proved an unciualitied success. A high water level in 
the wells maintained itself in spite of the drain of constant pumping 
and the supply appeared tlien as inexhaustible. 

Thomas Johnson, Joe Curtis and other influential men of San 
Jose, became prominent in ])romoting the Lindsay district. About 
four hundred acres, mostly in ten acre tracts, were planted. Be- 
tween two hundred and fifty and three hundred acres, also in small 
blocks, were planted near Porterville. 

Exeter entered the held in 1904 through the oi)erations of 
George Frost. This gentleman, with Messrs. Merryman, Carney, 
Hamtlton. Davis and others, set out about four hundred acres east 
of Exeter, naming it the Bonnie Brae orchard. In passing, it nifiy 
be noted that Mr. Merryman later absorlied the interests of his 
associates and greatly increased his holdings by the inirchasing 
of adjoining iiroiterty. In addition to several hundred acres of 
imdeveloped land and a considerable acreage devoted to olives 
and deciduous fruits, there are seven hundred and lifty acres 
devoted to oranges. It is the largest grove in the county and this, 
together with the elegant residence, large, beautiful gardens and 
grounds, make it one of the "show yilaces" of the district. 

Development at Lemon Cove did not lag behind this move- 
ment, iiromotion work there being first accomplished by Messrs. 
Hammond. Berry, Levis, Overall and Jordan of Visalia, who or- 
ganized the Kaweah Lemon Company and set some two hundred 
acres to trees. The Ohio Lemon Company shortly thereafter set 
another similar tract to this fruit. 

By 1904 develoi)ment had been thoroughly launched in the 
Porterville, Lindsay, Kxeter and Lemon Cove districts. We turn 
now to the commercial disijosition of the product. 

In 1892 there were boosters a-plenty for the new industry. It 
was deemed desirable to show the world that a new citrus district, 
producing fruit unecpialed, had been discovered. The World's Fair 
at St. Louis was to open January 1, 1904. Above all things it be- 
hooved growers here to make a big showing. P. M. Baier was 
selected to ])repare such an exhibit. The hrst full carload to 
leave the county was the fruit foi' this display and it required prac- 
ticall\- all grown in the county lo lill it. The exhibit was first shown 
in the Mechanics Pavilion in San l-'rancisco, and then forwarded to 
St. Louis, and received creditable mention at both ])laces. 

In 1893 there were four carloads at the Frost orcliai-d, and in 



44 TL'LARE AXD KIX(JS CorXTIKS 

the next season Itotli llie Kxcliange and tlie Earl Fruit Com- 
panies entered the field, getting out a i>ack of sixteen cars. This 
fruit reached the eastern market in time for the Thanksgiving and 
Christmas markets and sold for extra high prices. As this jieriod 
of ripening is several weeks in advance of Southern California a 
great deal of attention was attracted to this locality and many 
southern growers came, saw the results accomplished, and invested. 

Old residents of Tulare county, however, generally held aloof from 
venturing into this field. In fact, the whole business of the promo- 
tion of the sale of orange lands and their planting ap])eared to 
them as a rank swindle. The selling of foothill land at $2.") to $50 
per acre, or with water developed at $75 to $100, seemed to them 
as merely a scheme to catch suckers. Only within the last few 
years, in fact, have numbers of our own citizens taken an active 
part in the enterprise, these now freely paying for lauds treble the 
price that they formerly believed extravagant. 

During the first years of the rapid extension of acreage devoted 
to citrus fruits investors were very chary of straying far from the 
original bearing orchards. Objections innumerable were in fact 
advanced toward all other lands. 

The Hutchinson tract at Lindsay was held to mark the extreme 
westerly lioundary of the thermal belt ; only slopes and coves in 
the hills with certain exposures were suitable; south of Piano 
there was no water; hog- wallow land was unfit; failure to obtain 
water in the first trial in a new district was considered evidence 
that none was there; and so on, endlessly, with able reasons why 
the only true citrus lands had been planted liy the first growers. 
Largely in conseciuence of this attitude, the bearing orchards today 
geuerally lie in the districts tributary to Porterville, Tjiudsay, Exe- 
ter and Lemon Cove. 

Couuuencing some seven or eight years ago, however, there has 
been a bold exploitation of new districts, led by promoters with capi- 
tal, energy and o])tiraism. These have by actual demonstration shown 
conclusively that the citrus belt is not bounded by such narrow limits. 
Water in (|uantities has been develojied almost exerywhere. Dinuba, 
Orosi, Stokes valley, Yettem, Orange Heights, Klink, Venice Cove, 
Redbanks, AVoodlake, Xaranjo, Frazier valley, Strathmore, Zante, 
Terra P>ella and the entire district from Piano south to the county 
line, including Terra Bella, Ducor and Richgrove, are each now capa- 
lile of demonstrating by showing hundreds of acres of thriving or- 
chards that they are adapted to this culture. 

With the exception of Dinuba, Orosi, Yettem and Redbanks, 
which have other sources of income, all of these new districts are 
solely dependent upon citrus fruit culture for support. In this con- 
nection the solid improvements at Woodlake, Strathmore and Terra 
Bella, ))articularly in the way of substantial business structures. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 45 

hotels, liauks, news])ai)(M-s, imiiiiciital water snijply, cement sidowalks, 
etc., indicate the conlideiice of moneyed men in the potential prodnc- 
tive capacity of the community. 

All of this expenditure in the way of permanent nmnicipal im- 
provements, together with the outlay of capital incident to the installa- 
tion and maintenance throughout the entire district of electric power 
systems, necessarily forms a ])()rtion of the entire siun today invested 
in the citrus fruit industry of the county. The estimate of $i;'.,r)00,000, 
given at the commencement of this sketch, is shown, therefore, to be 
far too low. Twenty million would perhaps come nearer. Likewise, 
with reference to the pi-esent income. The estimate of $2,500,000 of 
present return was based on a production of four th.ousand carloads, 
four hundred boxes to the car, value $L50 per box. The cost of labor 
for handling and packing and the salaries and profits of the men en- 
gaged in this business were not included. Thus a fairer estimate of 
the present revenue from this source would be $.3,000,000. 

The first plantings were seedlings, but practically all have since 
been replaced by AVashington navels. The present pack of four thou- 
sand carloads consists of about two hundred and fifty cars of lemons, 
four hundred and fifty cars of Valencias and the remainder navels. 
There are thirty-five packing houses in the district, and double that 
numiier will be needed as soon as the present new acreage comes 
into bearing. 

Tulare county now ranks fifth in the state in the jiroduction of 
citrus fruits, but it appears certain that within four years it will take 
first place. 

TULARE COUXTY's DIMINISHED ARE.\ 

The present area of Tulare county is 4,86.3 square miles. 

It is still a large county and its diversified topography and pro- 
ductions cause it to seem a veritable empire. How vast the area once 
included in its bounds can be seen by the following slices that have 
l)een taken from its territory : In 1856, Fresno county, with 6,035 
square miles; in 1866, Inyo county, with 10,224 square miles; in 18()6, 
Kern county, with 1,852 s(|uare miles; and in 1893, Kings county. 
with 1,375 square miles. 



46 TULARE AXD KINGS COUNTIP^S 

CHAPTER VI 
THE GENERAL RODEO 

Three things were necessary in the early days of cattle raising in 
Tulare county to insure success. These were a branding iron, a range 
claim and a uunilter of active cowboys. 

There was a law at that time wliich had been jiassed l)y the legis- 
lature of '51, entitled "An act to regulate rodeos," which cau.sed this 
condition. This law provided for a general rodeo on every stock farm, 
and if a rancher failed to make it, it could be made by any of his 
neighbors at his expense; and provided further that no man should 
mark or lu-and his stock cattle except at one of these general rodeos. 

Of the law and its workings, Stephen Barton, writing in 187-i, 
says: "The cap sheaf of the enactment, however, was this section: 
'All unmarked neat cattle, the mothers of which are unknown, shall 
be considered the jiroperty of the owner of the farm on which they 
may be found.' These provisions of law resulted in this county in 
the unoccupied {)ul)li(' domain being divided into range claims, and he 
that was unable to make a general rodeo soon found that he. had no 
business to keep cattle, while those who undertook it found that the 
business of the year simplified itself to the task of assembling on his 
rodeo ground as many unmarked neat cattle without mothers as it 
were possible to do. Can it be wondered at that, under such circum- 
stances, cattle stealing should rise to the dignity of a science, and 
finally to that of a fine art .' The business of manipulating a rodeo 
was at once more simple than that of stacking a deck of cards or that 
of picking the i)ockets of an unwary traveler. Further, it was more 
respectable and re<iuired, in one case, less capital, in the other, 
less courage." 

In 1907 occurred an incident at White River which at once illus- 
trates the wealth once frequently found in the gold jiockets of this 
section and brought to light a story of a mysterious disapjiearance. 
buried treasure and unfounded siisjiicion strange as any fiction. 

It develops that in the early '80s Tom Bradford, a miner thought 
to have been quite successful, suddenly disappeared. No clue was 
obtained to his whereabouts; it was believed that he had met with foul 
play, and suspicion rested on J. M. White. At this time, so the story 
goes, Dave Hughes and old man Caldwell were interested believers in 
spiritualism and gave seances and table rappings. At one of these 
])erformances they announced that Bradford had met his death at 
the hands of White. Great excitement ensued in the camp and 
White's denial of guilt was not believed. 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 47 

Mr. White, by means of letters to almost every town in the state, 
finally located Bradford and received letters convincing the neighbors 
of his innocence. In one of these letters Bradford stated that he had 
buried some gold in Gordon's Gulch, described the location and told 
White to get it and keep it to repay him for the trouble he had ex- 
perienced. Mr. White and his sons searched Gordon's Gulch over and 
over, but failed to discover the treasure. 

In 1907 Bradford returned, having lost his eyesiglit and one arm 
tlaH)iigh a dynamite explosion, and is now known as "Blind Tom." 
Securing a guide, Tom Willard, in Delano, Blind Tom arrived in Gor- 
don's Gulch and by describing the location, which was by a chimney 
and near a flat rock surface, was conducted to the spot. A little dig- 
ging unearthed gold in various tin cans to the amoulit of twenty-five 
pounds. 

Following the Civil war the failing output of the mines caused a 
lessened i^rosperity. The lack of transportation facilities was severely 
felt and many endeavors were made to secure rail connections. 

Cattle raising continued ])rofitable and herds were increased. 
The discovery of the immense grazing territory of the Sierras gave an 
impetus to sheep raising, and wool became the principal product. 

The completion of the railroad tlirough Goshen and Tulare in 
1872, with the westward branch tlirough Hanford in 1877 caused a 
rush of settlers. These either purchased land of the railroad or 
acquired title bj^ pre-emption of homestead. The population increased 
very rapidly and farming on a large scale had its inception. Irrigating 
enterprises on a large scale were inaugurated. 

It must be remembered that the count}' by this time IkuI been 
greatly reduced in area, Kern having been cut off in 1856, and Fresno 
and Inyo in 1866. 

The "No Fence" law of 1871, passed just before the coming 
of the railroad, rendered farming i)racticable and now connneuced 
the era of wheat growing. Immense ranches were sown to the 
cereal, an acreage of from five to twenty thousand in one l)ody not 
being unusual. A section, or 640 acres, was considered a small farm. 
Tulare became the banner wheat ])roducing county of the state. 
Fourteen thousand carloads were shipi)ed in one season. The con- 
struction in 1888 of the east side branch of the Southern Pacific, 
passing through the Dinuba, Exeter, Porterville and Ducor country, 
brought an immense acreage of fine wheat lands into cultivation. 
Sheep raising, meanwhile, since the disastrous drought of '77, had 
been declining. 

In 1890 the county experienced what may be termed its third 
boom. The extraordinary yields and jirofits of fruit raising had 



48 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

been demonstrated by tbe crop sales of oreliards iu the two preceding 
years and now a general rush to plant trees took place. Probably 
fifteen thousand acres were set to trees and vines in this season. 

The discovery of the adaptability of the foothill belt to citrus 
fruits, the finding of subterranean rivers, and the exploitation of the 
power of the mountain streams were incidents of the succeeding 
years. Dairying, conducted at first on a small scale with inconsider- 
able profit, became shortly, from the increasing necessities of the 
rapidly growing city of Los Angeles, an industry of great im- 
portance. 

In general, tlie history of the county during the last fifteen years 
has been the prosaic development caused liy tlie flourishing growth 
of industry, accounts of which are given under separate headings. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 49 



CHAPTER VII 
EXETER AND OTHER TOWNS 

When, in 1888, the railroad construction crew struck the town- 
site of Exeter they found themselves in the grain field of John W. 
Firebaugh. Behind them and before them stretched other lields 
of wheat. A few farm houses were in sight, but there was no vestige 
of a town, nor did it appear likely that there ever would be. 

The Pacific Improvement Comjuiny, who had platted the town 
and owned the "city," found the sale of lots slow indeed. A black- 
smith shop, opened by John Hamilton, a store conducted by George 
W. Kirkman, a saloon and later a hotel constituted for several years 
the Exeter business establishments, and it was not until 1892 that 
a second general store, opened by R. H. Stevens, became necessary. 
At this time there were only two brick buildings in town, and the 
remainder consisted largely of mere shacks. 

Not until 1894 did the first stirring of life manifest itself. George 
W. Frost and associates in that year commenced the extensive orange 
plantings at "Bonnie Brae," a short distance east of town. Not, 
however, until about half a dozen years after this, when these 
orchards came into bearing, did the community realize the value 
of the land adjoining and since then growth has been very rapid. 
A bank, now called the First National Bank of Exeter, became neces- 
sary as early as 1901, and in 1912 the banking business had so grown 
as to justify the advent of another, tlie Citrus Bank. 

Exeter now has a iiopulation of thirteen hundred, with an 
assessed valuation of city property of $388,000. The business section 
is constructed almost wholly of brick, many of the buildings being 
of two stories with handsome pressed lirick fronts. Business is not 
confined to a few large emporiums, but distributed among a score 
of prosperous merchants. 

At two elections attempts to incorporate Exeter were defeated 
because of the opposition caused by the inclusion of much farm 
pro])(M-ty within the pro]iosed cor])orate limits. 

On March 2, 1911, the measure carried and under the leadership 
of the following officers the city commenced its career: Board of 
Trustees, G. E. Waddell. i)resident; W. P. Ballard, J. F. Duncan, 
James Kirk, W. A. Waterman; city marshal, C. E. Mackey; city 
treasurer, E. H. Miles; city recorder, W. B. Moore. 

The first im]iortant measure for the city's welfare undertaken 
was the establishment of a municipal water system, a pulilic service 
previously in private hands and furnishing inadequate service. Bonds 



50 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

iu the sum of $42,000 were voted in 1911 and this year witnessed the 
completion and commencement of oi)eratiou on a fine municii^al 
plant. About nine miles of piping thoroughly cover the city and 
jirovide for its needs for several years. Four wells furnish a more 
than adequate supply of pure water and a storage capacity of 100,- 
000 gallons gives good fire protection. 

Modern school buildings are a feature, the high school building, 
constructed in 1910 at a cost of $10,000, being particularly handsome. 
The high school has been in operation but four years, yet sis teachers 
are eni])loyed and a seventh has become necessary. In this connec- 
tion illustrative of the city's recent rapid growth it may be stated 
that last year's attendance was just double that of the jneceding 
year. 

A very ]irogressive Board of Trade has for many years materially 
aided the advancement of city and county interests. Through its 
efforts a citrus fair was held in 1909 which attracted great crowds 
of visitors, not only from the county l)ut from the large centers of 
population. Both financially and as a promotion enterprise this fair 
was an imqualified success. 

At the ]n-esent time the Board of Trade is engaged in the con- 
struction of a handsome brick structure which will house the city 
officers, afford room for meetings both of the board and the city 
council and furnish the abode for an exhil)it of the products of the 
surrounding section. 

Hunt Bros., a big firm of fruit canners who are also owners 
of a large orchard in the vicinity, have recently established a large 
canning factory which gives emi)loyment through the season to 
several hundred people. 

Prior to the completion, in 1899, of the connecting line with 
Visalia, Exeter was quite a stage and teaming center. Even after 
this, Exeter remained the terminus for the Lemon Cove and Three 
Rivers stages and when the orange and lemon orchards of the Lemon 
Cove district came into bearing, the i)roduct, amounting to aliout a 
hundred carloads per season, was hauled to Exeter to be placed 
aboard cars. 

The Visalia Electric Railway, completed in 1907, necessarily 
wiped out this traffic, but by increasing trading, ti-aveling and sliip- 
ping facilities, has been a great benefit to the city. 

Exeter now has first class transportation facilities in four direc- 
tions. It may be said to be on the main line and two branch lines 
of the Southei'ii Pacific as well as having an electric railway. 

Aside from these connections and its central location, Exeter is 
situated in a ]ieculiarly favorable position by reason of its being 
practically on the line se]iarating the farming, dairying and deciduous 
fruit district from the citrus belt. Of course, there is no real line of 
demarcation and the land immediateh' surrounding the town is adapted 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 51 

and devoted to both cultures. Orange groves, alfalfa fields, ])ea('li 
orchards and vineyards of table grapes adjoin. 

Generally the farming and general fruit lands extend from the 
lowlands to the west to the neighborhood of the town, and eastward 
to the hills orange growing is in almost exclusive vogue. 

The result is that the prosjierity arising from the valuable 
l)r()duotions of the fertile soil is not intermittent, but constant through- 
out the year. The facilities for caring for these products are of the 
best. In addition to the cannery, there is a packing house for the 
shipment of fresh fruit to eastern markets, and four orange packing 
estal)lishments. 

MONSON 

The station of ^Monson, on the line of the Southern Paciiic noi'th 
of Visalia, is in a fine farming section and there are a number of 
orchards and vineyards in the vicinity. It is a small village; the 
school employs one teacher. 

KAWEAH 

Two miles north of Three Rivers is the postofifice and stage station 
known as Kaweah. It is located beside a picturesquely tree and vine 
bordered streamlet that is a feeder to the north fork of the Kaweah 
river. Much tillable land in large part devoted to apple orchards 
lies liereabouts and the neighborhood is, for a mountain settlement, 
well poinilated. There is a daily stage to Lemon Cove and during the 
summer months a stage is run from this point to Giant Forest. 

NORTH TULE 

North Tule is the name given to the fertile valley of the Tule 
river after it issues from the western slopes of the Sierras, in the 
southeastern part of Tulare county. The valley is about thirty 
miles long with an average width of five miles and with numerous 
side valleys entering it. The soil is very fertile and has long been 
known for its fine ajiples. Many villages and settlements are found 
along the valley, among which are Milo, ('ramer, l^aldwin Plats, 
Duncan's Flat, Springville, Globe and China Flats. 

PIXLEY 

Another of the stations of note on the line of the Southern 
Pacific is the flourishing town of Pixley. It is in a rich farming dis- 
trict and is an important point for grain dealers. It is in the ai'tesian 
country and large alfalfa fields have been sown, and dairying is 
coming to the front. There is a fine school house, hotel and several 
mercantile houses. Much of the lands about the town were owned by 
people of San Francisco and they named it in honor of the talented 
Frank Pixley, founder and editor of the Argonaut. 



5-2 TULARE AXl) l\IX(;S COUXTII'^S 

TIPTON 

The town of Tiptou had its origin 'with the comini'- of the 
Southern Pacitic Railway and was made a depot. It is in the midst 
of a rich farming and dairying country, and some of the people 
have planted orchards. It is the natural shipping point for a large 
part of the lower Tule country, but the town has not grown with the 
rajiidity of other places. It has a number of mercantile and other 
business houses and the business men are confidently expecting that 
in the next few years there will be a large influx of people. There 
are a number of artesian wells in the vicinity and the dairy liusiness 
is growing to l)e of great importance. 

ALILA 

The most southerly town in the county on the line of the rail- 
road is Alila. It is in the country between the sinks of Deer creek 
and White river, and in the artesian belt. It thus has a rich and 
valuable country around it. There are good warehouses and a large 
amount of grain is handled here. The school and churcli are well 
represented and there are a number of business houses in town. 

POPLAR 

Poplar is not the name of a town, but rather of a rich farming- 
country west and south from Porterville, and being southeastward 
from the Woodville country. It is a famous stockraising section and 
also a fine country for grain. In the early days the land owners 
here united and brought in a supply of water from the Tule river. 
This was by means of the Bid ditcli. A co-operative comi)any was 
formed and established a general merchandising house that is still 
doing business. 

FRAZIEE 

One of the most l)eautiful sections of Tulare county is Frazier 
valley, which lies al)out twenty-five miles east and south of Tulare 
City. It borders the Tule river above where the river emerges into 
the more open plains. It has a po^toffice and a number of farms 
and orchards. It is, witli its side valleys, some fifteen miles long 
and five miles wide. The valley is now attracting much attentioTi as 
being a choice locality for early fruit and vegetables. It is finely 
watered and is comparatively free from frosts. 

WOODVILLE 

The name Woodville was given to a rich farming country lying 
along the south side of Tule river, eight miles west from Porterville 
and twenty miles south of Visalia. It derived its title from the 
extensive groves of white oak covering the country. A store was 
established at an early date and a postoffice located there, besides 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 53 

a solioollunise, and jieople in the neighborhood are l)eginnini>' to put 
out orchards and lioi)e in a few years to have a ])rosi)erous town 
there. The soil is very rieli, and alfalfa fields ai'e liefoniing 
numerous and much attentioii is paid of late to dairying. 

STRATHMORE 

One of the late towns to spring up in Tulare county is Strath- 
more, and it has from the first shown a lusty growth. On the line 
of the railway between Lindsay and Porterville it is the depot for 
one of the tine orange districts of the county. At the citrns fair held 
in Visalia in 1910 Stratlimore nuule a remarkably fine exhibit of 
citrns and deciduous fruits, olives, jiomegranates and other jirodncts. 

ESHOM V.\LLEY 

A few miles east of Badger lies the mountain dale called Eshom 
Valley, one of the beauty spots of the county. The valley is several 
miles long and in ]>laces a mile wide. Though situated at a high 
elevation not far below the edge of the pines, the soil is warm and 
fertile and farm croj^s, vegetables, l)erries, apples, etc., produce 
exceedingly well. There i.s much good grazing land in the vicinity 
and the hills being thickly wooded with acorn-bearing oaks, hog 
raising has proven a profitable branch of the stock raising industry. 

The climate is so tempered liy the altitude that it has liecome 
a resort favored l)y tourists in snnnner. Esliom Valley is of historic 
interest as being once the home of a great tribe of Indians whose 
powerful chief, Wuk-sa-che, more than once led them to victory in 
battle with the Monaches. The Indian name of the valley was 
"Oha-ha-du," "a place where clover grows the year round." Or- 
lando Barton states that when he first visited the valley, in the 
'60 's, he saw droves of Indians eating clover there. 

The valley was visited as early as 1857 by James Fisher and 
Thomas Davis, and derived its name from Mr. Eshom, one of the 
first residents, who settled there and engaged in farming. In 1862 
Jasper Harrell laid claim to the valley but did not succeed in holding 
it. His foi'cman, J. B. Breckeni-i<lge, was killed l>v the Indians 
in 1863. 

ALPAUGH 

In early days Tulare lake covered a much greater area than at 
present. Near its southeastern end existed a large island owned 
by Judge Atwell of "N'isalia, and known at Atwell's Island. Long 
since the waters of the lake have subsided, the island no longer 
exists, but its location is marked by tlie growing town of Alpaugh. 
The whole section hereal)0uts was for many years used by Miller & 
Lux as a ])astnre for their immense hei'ds of cattle. The lands were 
deemed unlit I'oi' agi-iculturnl purjioses. 



54 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

In 1!)()5 a syiulicatc of Los Au^eles caiiitalists obtained control 
of 88G1 acres, coniprisin.ii- ^Vtwell'.s Island, and ])la('ed it on tlie 
market in small tracts on easy terms. A large number of purchasers 
were found and tiiese, with their families — two hundred and twelve 
persons in all — came up to settle. So general was the idea among old 
residents of the county that this land was worthless that the enter- 
prise was "knocked" on all sides. Every Al|)augh colonist was 
told that he was an "easy mark." The '\"isalia Board of Trade 
seriously considered the passing of a resolution condemning the land 
sale as a swindle, but were dissuaded from liasty action by Ben M. 
Maddox. 

The colonists did have trouble. AVith most of them funds were 
scarce, and many had to leave temporarily. There was trouble in 
getting a supply of good water. Perseverance o\ercame these 
obstacles. A school district was organized in 1906, a church and 
school house erected and home building was recommenced. Suc- 
cessful experiments in raising alfalfa and vegetables were con- 
ducted, artesian wells were sunk and a sui)ply of water obtained, 
this not sufficient, however, for irrigation purposes. But the wells 
put down were found of double value. Besides water, they sup- 
]ilied a natiiral gas that can be used for heating and lighting. 

The colonists have increased in niuubers and umcli activity is 
shown in raising vegetaliles. Quite a Inisiness has been established 
in the canning of tomatoes, ]3eas, etc. The raising of garden seeds 
for the market has ]iroved especially profitable and it has been 
found that the fine silt soil is peculiarly adajited to the production 
of asparagus, (uiions and other vegetables. The colonists have 
arranged to get a bountiful suppl.\- of water for irrigating purposes 
from the Smyrna wells, distant a few miles south. 

South and west from Alpaugh nmch work is being done in the 
reclamation of submerged lake lands by the construction of levees. 
Alpaugh is situated eight miles south and west from Angiola. The 
Santa Fe railroad contemplates tlie building of a spur to connect 
Alpaugh with the main line, and this, it is believed, will not be 
delayed, as shipments fully warrant it. 

TAGUS 

AVliile the name Tagus, a])plied to the switch on the Soiithern 
Pacific track about midway between Goshen and Tulare, is not 
worthy of mention, the neighlioring country, or Tagus district, is. 
The Tagus ranch of several thousand acres devoted to dairying, 
alfalfa and grain farming has ])roven exce])tionally in-ofitable, espe- 
cially since the experiment on it of raising sugar beets. Of neces- 
sity cultivation for this purpose was very deep and thorough and 
crops since have been extraordinarily large. The neighborhood is 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIPIS 55 

almost exohisively devoted to alfalfa aud dairying. Probably no 
district in the county delivers more butter fat to the creameries in 
proportion to its area than the Tagus section. 

GOSHEN 

The town of Goshen, seven miles west of Visalia, dates its his- 
tory from the com])letion of the railroad to that point, in May, 1872 
Here the contemplated branch of the Southern Pacific from San 
Francisco by way of Gilroy, Tres Pinos and Huron, was to join 
the line of the Central Pacific, proceeding from Stockton south. A 
passenger and a freight dejiot was built, large numbers of lots sold, 
and it was thouglit that l>efore many years Goshen would become 
an important city. 

The construction, in l!S7-i-, of the X'isalia-Goshen railway insjjired 
renewed hopes in the future of the town as a great railway center. 
In 1876 work was conunenced on the westerly branch, running 
through the Mussel Slough country, and supposed to make connec- 
tions at Tres Pinos. This road got as far as Alcalde only. 

However, Goshen did become the railroad center of the county 
and of the San Joaquin valley. Geographically, it is admirably 
situated, lying midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, 
within touching distance on the one hand of Visalia and Exeter 
and on the other with TTanford and Coalinga. Surrounding it lie 
extensive tracts, suitable for fruit, vines or alfalfa. Several produc- 
tive and lucrative orchards and vineyards in the vicinity attest the 
adaptability of the soil. 

Notwithstanding these apparent advantages, Goshen still re- 
mains a small village. The cause of this failure to grow lies no 
(loul)t in the fact that the soil surrounding the de])ot is alkaline in 
character and Tinfavora1)ly impresses home-seekers looking from the 
windows of a car. 

A few years ago Goshen was made a sub-station on the Asso- 
ciated Oil Company's ])ipe line. A numlier of neat cottages for the use 
of emi)loyes were erected and these, while situated in the cjuestion- 
able soil spoken of, are now surrounded by lawns and gardens 
creditable to any locality. 

Within the last few years the exceedingly fertile character of 
Goshen lands has become known to many investors. Orchards and 
vineyards have been planted on a considerable scale and it is be- 
lieved that rapid and at the same time .solid and substantial growth 
awaits the village kept so long dormant. 

PAIGE 

Paige is the name of a station on the Santa Fe, west from 
Tulare. It is the dei)ot for the large settlement that is growing 



56 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

up oil and aroimd the great Paige & Morton ranch, which once 
claimed the largest vineyard in the world, besides having extensive 
orchards and grain lands. A considerable part of it has in the past 
few years been sold in small holdings. Thus an important settle- 
ment is being made there, and the surrounding country is rapidly 
becoming a great dairy section. 

AXGIOLA 

Angiola dates its history from the coming of the Santa Fe 
railroad. It is in the lake region on the main line of the railroad 
running south from Hanford to Bakersfield. It is an important 
place now for supplying the rapidly growing lake country. It is in 
the artesian belt, and the surrounding country is very fertile. The 
greater part of the soil is rich silt, capable of producing all kinds of 
crops. Grain and alfalfa predominate, although a considerable acre- 
age is being used for beet raising. The large sugar factory at Cor- 
coran is largely dependent upon the lake lands for the supply 
of beets. 

YETTEM 

Lying north of Visalia about sixteen miles is a rich farming 
district formerly known as Churchill. It is along the base of the 
low foothills and has an exceptionally ricli soil and comparative 
freedom from frosts. A few years ago a colony of Armenians 
bought property here and jjut out vineyards and orchards. From 
the fine gardens and rapid growth of tree and vine the Armenians 
named the settlement Yettem, "Garden of Eden." There is now a 
general store, a school and a fine church as the nucleus of a town, 
lying about a mile east of the line of the Santa Fe. The station now 
called Yettem was formerly called Lowell. 

PLANO 

The town of Piano might well be called South Porterville. as it 
lies south of that town and just across the Tule river. The name 
was suggested l)y its location in the great, beautiful plain sweeping 
down from the foothills of the Sierras and extending out westward! y. 
This ]ilain is one of the fairest, and the elegant homes that have 
been made here and that still are being established receive an 
additional charm from the grand view of the snow-capi>ed Sierras 
to the east. 

Being on the main stage road leading from Visalia to Los 
Angeles, and to the Kern river and Owens valley mining districts, it 
was in early times a stage station. William Thompson was its first 
pioneer merchant and postmaster. Dr. F. A. Johnson was its 
earliest physician. Here it was that the first oranges in Tulare 
county were raised. As noted elsewhere. D. Gibbons here planted 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 57 

a few trees in his yai'd, and some of them are still bearing fruit. 
It is now yrown to he a great orange center, with pleasant homes, 
schools, churches, etc. As a suburlj of Porterville, the social ad- 
vantages incident to pojiulous conunnnities are shared, while by its 
separation from the bustling city the charm of suburban life remains 
unimpaired. 

THREE EIVEKS 

Twenty-eight miles east of Visalia at the junction of the forks 
of the Kaweah river in the foothills, lies the village of Three Rivers. 
The Three Rivers country may properly be considered to embrace 
the territory included in Three Rivers voting precinct, which extends 
southerly to Yokohl, westerly to Lemon Cove, northerly to Eshom 
and easterly to Inyo county, an area of twenty-one townships. 

The first known white man to enter this section was Hale D. 
Tharpe, a stockman, who came in the fall of 1858. The Works 
family, William Swauson and family, John Lovelace and family, 
Joseph Palmer, A. Everton, Ira Blossom and family, followed soon 
after and were the pioneers of the settlement. 

At the time of Mr. Tharpe 's arrival Indians in the vicinity 
were very numerous, the population being estimated at two thou- 
sand. These tribes are now practically extinct, and in this vicinity 
not one remains. The progress of the settlement was very slow, 
there being practically no immigration until 1878, when the gold 
excitement at Mineral King took place. The mining activities at 
Mineral King and the construction of a road to that ])lace caused 
a temporary influx of residents, but the mining excitement dying 
down, the population remained practically as before. 

In lS8r) the Kaweah Co-ojjcrative Colony made this their base 
of oi)erations, establishing a village on the north fork of the Kaweah. 
These colonists commenced the construction of a road to the (iiant 
Forest and completed about twenty miles of it. This project was 
abandoned in 18i)(), most of the colonists leaving the county. Quite 
a number, however, remained and have materially aided in the 
development of the district. Settlement has slowly but steadily 
increased until the present pojiulation numbers six hundred and 
fifteen. 

In 1878 a postoffice was established at Three Rivers; in 1892 at 
Kaweah, on the north fork; in 1905 at Hammond, on the main river, 
and in 1907 at Ranger (Giant Forest). 

Britten Brothers, in 1897, opened a general merchandise store 
and in 1910, the Rivei- Iim (*omi)any, in connection with a hotel 
situated at the junction of the north fork, installed anothei-. In 1899 
the Mt. Whitney Power Company ]mt in a large ])ower plant, in 
1905 a scM'ojid was installed and at the present writing a thii'd and a 



58 TULAKE AXD KINGS COUNTIES 

fourth are in coui-jse of coustnictioii. There are two good scliools, a 
public liall, two blacksmith shops. Au extensive telephone system 
owned by tlie coiiiniiHiity unites the iiUMiil)c'rs of this widely scattered 
settlement. 

In early days the sole industry of the section was stock raisins,-, 
the footliill country furnishing an almndance of s])rino- feed and the 
mountain ranges contril)uting the summer supply. 

In the early '70s, Joe Palmer carried in on his back a few a])ph' 
trees and became the jiioneer of an industry that now adds a con- 
siderable (juota to the jirosperity of the region. Apples were found 
to do exceedingly well and numerous orchards now dot not only the 
river bottom lands of the lower sections, but are successfully grown 
as far up as the jiine belt at an elevation of forty-five hundred feet. 

The excellent fishing and hunting, the climatic advantages 
and the scenic wonders of the higher Sierras, bring through Three 
Rivers each year an increasing number of tourists and sjiortsnien 
and outfitting and catering to these has become an important branch 
of business here. 

A TALE OF INDIAX TROUBLE AT THREE RIVERS IN EARLY D.W'S. 

In May, 1857, the Works and Pemberton families had sold a 
herd of cattle and had considerable money. A few days after the 
sale transaction a band of some eighty or ninety Indians came over 
from the Owens Kiver valley and established camp just across 
the Kaweah river from the Works' house. Many of the Indians 
bore firearms, and amongst them was one man that had recently 
killed a white man on the Owens river without cause or provocation, 
and was wearing the dead man's clothes at the time. On the 25th 
of the month, when the men settlers were away looking after their 
stock, a portion of the Indians looted the premises of Pemberton 
and Works. When the men returned home and saw what had 
transiiired. Joseph Palmer, H. Works and Pemljerton immediately 
started out for the camp of the Indians to adjust matters. While 
enroute to the Indian camp they met six Indians and told them of the 
depredations they had committed. Immediately the Indian that had 
killed the man at Owens river made an attem])t to draw a ])istol. 
whereuijon Jose]>h Palmer struck the Indian u))on the head with his 
gun, instantly killing him. Following, several shots were fired at 
close range from both sides in which three or four Indians were 
killed, and the whites not injured. The Indians all left the c(uintry 
the same evening, after which the dead Indians were all l)urie(l by 
the whites. 

This was the first, last, and onlv trouble with the Indians. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 59 

SPRINGVILLE 

Among the lianilets which of recent years liave attracted unusual 
attention among residents of the southern end of the county as 
well as among visiting prospective settlers is the town of Spring- 
ville, situated about sixteen miles eastward from Porterville at an 
elevation of 1072 feet. 

The village lies near the Tulc I'iver, below the junction of the 
north fork with the main channel, and takes its name from a sjilendid 
soda si)ring found there, the waters of which are noted for their 
agreeable taste and for their cui'ative properties. The town is 
frequently referred to as the "Gateway to the Sierras," as from 
it diverge roads and trails reaching many mountain jioints of interest. 
Its chief fame, however, rests u]5on the superb quality of apples 
grown in the neighborhood. These have taken i)rizes wh.erever 
exhibited and their jiroduction has become extensive. Oranges are 
also largely grown and with success, comparative freedom from 
fi'osts being enjoyed. 

Oi'iginally the town was named Daunt, from William G. Daunt, 
a ])ioneer settler who opened a store during tlie '6()s. The origin 
of the ])resent village, however, dates from 1889, when A. M. Ooburn, 
a lumberman operating a mill in the mountains, purchased a tract 
of land originally taken uj) l)y John Crabtree, and set aside eighteen 
acres as a townsite. 

The prospective value of the springs was one of the inducements 
for purchasers of the lots, and the town to be was given the name 
Soda Springs. A school house and a building intended to be used 
as a sanitarium were the only structures on the land. The vision 
of a famous "spa" did not materialize, but as Mr. Ooburn built a 
box factory and planing mill and sold lots and lumber on easy terms 
to his employees, a number of houses were built and a nucleus of a 
town started. The "sanitarium" was converted into a hotel and 
later torn down for the erection of the present Springville hotel. 

The postoffice was at Mr. Daunt 's place, nearly a mile down 
the river. Originally mail had been brought from Visalia twice a 
week, Charles Lawless being the carrier. Later it was sent from 
Tulai'e by way of AVoodvillc, Porterville and Piano. On the com- 
pletion of the railroad to Poilerville a daily mail by stage from that 
l)lace was established. 

In 1890 Mr. Cobuni bought out Mr. Daunt 's store and moved it 
and the postoffice to the present site. The name "Daunt" for the 
postottice was continued for several years by reason of the fad tliat 
there was a Springville postoffice in Ventura county. This latter 
having lapsed, the name "Springville" applies now to the postoffice 
as well as the town. 



60 TULARIO AND KIXGS C()l'X'lMi:S 

."\1INEKAL KING 

Sixty miles east of Visalia, reached via I^cinon Cove and Three 
Rivers, at the soiiree of the east fork of the ixaweah river, lies the 
mouutain valley, Mineral King. Here, at an altitude of eight thou- 
sand feet, the summer climate is cool and invigorating, and this, 
together with the numerous nearby scenic attractions, the abundant 
wild feed, the good fishing and its position as the furthermost moun- 
tain ])oiut accessible to wagons, has caused it to become a resort 
visited in summer by multitudes of people. 

Saw Tooth, a peak of thirteen thousand feet, towers directly 
above. J^'rom its summit a Avonderful view of towering peaks, 
divides, declivities and nestling lakes are obtained. Monarch lake 
and Eagle lake lie close to camp and are readily visited. Soda and 
other mineral s])rings abound. 

The valley heads at Farewell Gap, a pass of 10,600 feet elevation 
dividing the waters of the Kaweah from those of the Little Kern. 
Over it pass the trails leading to Trout Meadows, to Kern Lakes, 
to Mt. Whitney and to Inyo county. There are also trails leading 
from Mineral King to the Giant Forest over Timber Gap, to the 
Hockett Meadows over Tar Gap, as well as one leading directly to 
Kern Lakes. 

Many people from the valley have built cabins and have a per 
manent summer camp here. There is a stable summer population 
of aliout two hundred, and the total number of visitors, yearly 
increasing, is over one thousand. There is a store, postoffice and 
a telephone line to the valley. 

But time was when the activities here were of an entirely 
different nature. Gold was discovered here in the early '70s and 
hundreds of miners flocked to the scene. The Mineral King Mining 
District was formed and locations and transfers filed under the 
Federal laws. A town of about five hundred inhabitants sprung 
up and was named Beulah. Stamp and saw mills were erected. A 
road from Three Rivers, passing over a veiy difficult territory, was 
built at an exjienditure of about $100,000. At one time daily stages 
from Msalia made the entire distance in one day. 

A clear idea of the glory of Beulah in 1S7i). the year which 
marked its greatest prosperity, may be gained liy the following, from 
.the pen of Judge W. B. Wallace: 

"Ex-Senator Fowler had purchased the Empire mine and with 
characteristic energy was completing the road, erecting a (|uartz 
mill and tramway, and driving a long tunnel into the mountain. 
Things were moving that year. A sawmill was in operation and 
cabins were going u]) in all directions. An assay office was estab- 
lished and mines weie located bv the hundreds. 



TULAK1-: AXl)KlX(iS CUUXTIKS 61 

"The X. K. Tunnel and Smelting Company was incorporated 
in 1875. anotlier was or,i;anized in 1876, and the White Chief (xold 
and Silver Mining C'ompany was called into being in 1880. But the 
year 1879 was the most fruitful in the production of these artificial 
persons for that camp. That year ten companies were organized 
with an aggregate capital stock which would put to shame that little 
kerosene side issue of the Standard Oil Company. « * * 

"At the general election held in 1879, the candidates for 
lieutenant governor and chief justice of the supreme court received 
one hundred thirt.v-seven votes for each office and the candidates 
for superior judge, assemblyman and district attorney received one 
hundred thirty-six votes in Mineral King. 

"There were ten and perhaps twelve places where intoxicating 
licjuors were sold, and events ]n-oved that the recorder, who received 
$5 for recording every location notice, and the saloon men worked 
the only paying mines. But there was very little riotousuess and 
disorder. There were no such essentially bad men there as are 
iisually found in new mining camps, with notched pistol handle.'^ and 
private burying grounds to which they could point with blood- 
curdling suggestions. There was but one shooting affray that I 
recall. It grew out of a dispute over the right to the possession of 
a small tract of land. One of the particiitants received a slight 
wound. * * * 

"There are but two graves in Mineral King. In the late '70s, 
early in the sjiring, one of the newcomers went to Redwood Meadow 
on foot, taking no provisions with him. A snow storm came on 
which fenced him in. In two or three days he started to return, 
crossed Timber (iaji and struggled through the snow until within a 
quarter of a mile of the camj). He called for help and was heard, 
but his voice was not recognized as that of a human being and the 
next morning his frozen body was found where he had evidently 
sat down, exhausted, and after vainly calling had given up the 
struggle. 

"When John Heinlen was prospecting the White Ch.ief mine, 
two of his miners were carried down the mountainside and buried in 
an ;ivalanche of snow. One was found and dug out alive, Imt the 
l)ii(Iy (if the other was not recovered until the spring thaw. 

"In the early days Orlando Barton was the X^estor of the 
camp, having the most extended and varied fund of knowledge. James 
Maukins and John (/i-abtree were ])erliaps the best prospectors. 
John Meadows was the most enthusiastic and conhdent of the early 
locators, rating his jiossessions worth a million dollars. lie was a 
farmer, a stockraisei-, a miner, a preacher, and a fighter, hut withal 
a l)i'a\'e. honest and conscientious man. 

"J. T. Trauger, who came in for the X^ew England Company as 



62 TULARE AND KINGS C'UL'NTIES 

its superintendent, and the last recorder of the district, was known 
to all and was a favorite in the district. His wife was foi- yeais 
the jj:ood angel of the camp, wliose cheerful disposition, sterling 
(|ualiiies and strength of character won for her the respect and 
admiration of all the curiously assorted denizens of the district. 
The trail was never too rough, nor the night too dark to keejj her 
from the hedside of the suffering miner whose cry of distress was 
heard, whether stricken hy sickness, crushed in an a^•alanche of 
snow or mangled hy an untimely hlast. 

"Politicians early discovered the necessity of winning the 
Mineral King voters, and several political meetings were held there 
when local orators avowed in various forms their willingness to 
forego many personal i)leasures that they might serve the country. 

"Itinerant ministers also preached to the assemhled people, not 
from great cathedrals decorated with luiintings of the old masters, 
nor accompanied by the nmsic of grand organs, but in those groves 
whicli were God's first temples, where swaying pine and mountain 
streams made music, under a great dome ])ainted by the Master's 
hand, set with a thousand gems and softly lighted by the moon's pale 
beams, and where all nature joined in anthems of praise. 

"Mineral King was a silver camp and many of the old pros- 
pectors were actually silverized. In white, seamless rock they 
would point out wire silver and horn silver. They named the lakes 
and the ledges silver and saw and admired the silver lining to every 
cloud. The very word had such a fascination for them that they 
talked in soft, silvery tones. They pricked up their ears wlien 
silver gray foxes were alluded to and stood at attention when the 
old bear hiraters sj^ike of the silver-tipped grizzly, and as they lay 
down at night and gazed at the full orbed moon, they viewed it as 
the original of the silver dollar, having milled edges and a lettered 
flat surface, and wondered whether what they had looked at from 
infancy as the man in the moon might not after all be a mint im- 
pression of the American eagle." 

But the mines proved but the graveyard of many fortunes. 
Nothing came of them but disaster and the little town was a])on- 
doned. Many of the homes were left and for years were used by 
peoi)le who went u]) into the valley for a suunuer outing, !)ut the 
snows anil the rains have destroyed them all. 

T RAVER 

Traver was founded >\pril 8, 1884, or rather, that was the date 
when town lots were sold at auction. The town owes its origin 
entirely to the construction of the '76 canal and is tlie only place 
on the line of the Southern Pacific railroad not originally owned 
by that corporation. However, the Southern Pacilic ol)taine(l an 



TULARPJ AND KINGS COUNTIES 63 

interest in the property lu^'ore they would consent to the establish- 
ment of a depot there. 

Traver is three miles south of Kings river. The bottom lands 
of the stream are exceedingly fertile and capable of producing every 
known product grown in California. It was named after Charles 
Traver, a capitalist of Sacramento, who was interested in the '76 
canal enterprise. At the time of the sale of lots, excursions were run 
from San Francisco and from Los Angeles. The sales on April 8, 
188-1-, aggregated $65,000. The only bouse then in Traver was a 
small structure that had been moved from Cross Creeks, and occu- 
pied l)y Kitchener & Co. as a store. Buildings were soon erected 
and a thriving town ensued. Traver has suffered greatly from fires, 
but is still a thriving place, and center of a valuable farming, fruit 
raising and dairying section. Fine schools, lodges and churches are 
supplied. 

HOCKETT MEADOWS 

The Ilockett meadows, containing about one hundred sixty 
acres of land lying on the plateau region near the head waters of 
the south fork of the Kaweah, are desirable camping ])laces. The 
elevation is about eighty-five hundred feet and in consequence the 
climate during the sunnner is cool and bracing. There is the 
greatest abundance of feed, botli here and in all the surrounding 
country. Lake Evelyn, one of the nuist beautiful of mountain lakes, 
is distant about three miles. There is excellent trout fishing in 
Hockett meadow creek, in Horse creek, one and one-half miles away, 
and in the waters of the south fork, two miles away. 

The park line is distant but a mile and a half, so that hunting 
for deer, which are here numerous, is within easy reach. There 
are trails to Mineral King and to Little Kern river, each distant 
aliout eight miles. 

REDBANKS 

Redlianks, the terminal station of the Visalia electric road, is 
situated about fifteen miles northwest of Msalia, and takes its name 
froin the i)roi)erties of the Redbanks Orchard Company, which 
adjoin. 

This orchard, one of the lai'gcst in the county and the only 
one devoted exclusively to the ])roduction of deciduous fruits for 
the eastern market, is located on the siiur of hill known as Colvin's 
Point. Pi'obably no part of Tulare county more vividly sets forth 
tlic rapid change from i)arched pasture lands to green gardens and 
prodndive orchards. This orchard venture of some thirteen hun- 
dred jiiid fifty acres had its inception in 190-!-, when P. ^l. Haier, Dr. 
W. W. S(|uires and Charles Joannes purchased a considerable acre- 
age, since adding to it. INfr. P>aier, formerly manager for the Earl 



64 TULAKE AXD KINGS COUNTIES 

Fruit Company, and a man of the widest knowledge of deciduous 
finiit growing and marketing, liad become convinced by observation 
of vegetable growth in the \'iciuity, that here was a remarka1)!y early 
section, the products of wliicli sliould bring extremely high ]irices in 
the eastern market. 

No care or expense has been spared on the orchard and the 
result has exceeded expectations. Carloads of several varieties of 
fruits and table grapes are now shipped from here each season 
several days in advance of consignments forwarded from any other 
])oint in the state. 

WHITE EIVER 

White Kiver, situated near the junction of the middle and south 
forks of "White river, about twenty-six miles southeast of Piano, 
arrived at early fame through the discovery here by D. B. James, 
of gold. This was followed by a wild stampede of miners and a 
typical early day mining town called "Tailholt," sprang up at once. 
Stores and shops, saloons, dance halls, gambling hoiTses, stage 
station, a quartz mill and a graveyard became necessary to supply 
the needs of the inhabitants and were provided. 

Seven men were soon "planted" in the last mentioned place, 
all dying with their boots on. It appears that each of these was 
named Dan, but history is silent in regard to why the bearing of 
that name was of peculiar hazard. 

In addition to the mining conducted in the vicinity, tlie town 
prospered by reason of being on the route to the Kern and Owens 
river mining districts. It became the source of supplies to thou- 
sands of miners, and the principal town in the southern jiortion of 
the county. 

In all these districts, however, while considerable gold was taken 
out, there ajipeared to be no large deposits of the precious metal. 
Pockets, while rich, soon petered out and the glory of the village 
lasted but a few years. A score or more miners remained to work 
claims at a small profit, a liusiness whidi continues to this day. 

At one time lumbering developed into quite an industry from 
the saw mills operated in the adjacent pineries. 

Of recent years stockraising has been the principal source of 
revenue to the inhabitants of the district, althougli the citrus belt 
is extending to the neighborhood and the possibilities of ai)ple 
culture afiford })rospective reasons for future development. 

THE GI.4NT FOREST 

This, the largest grove of giant sequoias in the ]nuk. and in the 
world, is situated at an altitude of from six to seven thousand five 
hundred feet, on a plateau lying between the middle and ^larble 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 65 

forks of the Kaweah river, at a distance (by road) of about sixty 
miles from Visalia. Tliere are within it over iive thousand trees 
of a diameter of ten feet or more, together witli many monsters 
whose diameter ranges from twenty-five to thirty feet. The General 
Sherman tree, whose circumference six feet above the ground is one 
hundred nine feet, is considered to be the largest in the world. Its 
age is estimated at six thousand years. Other large groves are 
the Dorst, situated in the northwest corner of the park, and Gar- 
field, lying a short distance southeast of the Giant Forest, and the 
Muir, which stands on the south side of the south fork of the 
Kaweah, about twenty miles above Three Rivers. 

The Giant Forest was discovered by Hale Tharpe in the early 
'60s, and named by John Muir in 1890. 

Camp Sierra, as the site chosen for hotel and camp grounds 
is called, is delightfully situated alongside a little meadow, amidst 
groves of sequoias and firs. 

Among the nearby points of interest may be mentioned the 
Marble Falls, nine hundred sixty feet in height; Admiration Point, 
whence precipices of two thousand feet on three sides confront ; Sunset 
Rock, affording a beautiful open view of the valley, and Morro Rock, 
a monolith eighteen hundred feet in vertical heiglit, which overlooks 
the canyon of the middle fork of the Kaweah. From its summit 
is obtained a near view of many snow-covered peaks, ranging from 
ten to fourteen thousand feet in height, a clear view of the Kaweah, 
almost a mile below, of the San Joaquin valley beyond, and of the 
coast range of mountains, visible for jierhaps two hundred miles of 
their length. 

Then there are the beautiful Twin Lakes, situated at an altitude 
of nearly ten thousand feet, distant eleven miles. Flanked at oue 
side 1)>- banks of almost ]3erpetual snow, overlooked by precipitous 
bluffs of granite, the crystal clear waters mirroring i)erfectly the 
bordering rocks and tamarack groves, they form a picture that lives 
long in memory. 

Kasy to visit are Log, Crescent and Alta meadows, each having 
its peculiar charms; there is the "house tree," so called because 
in it Everton lived for five winters while engaged in trapping; 
Tharpe 's log cabin, a hollow tree fitted with doors and windows and 
furnishings, formerly the summer home of Hale Tliar]ie; "chimney 
trees," hollow from grtnind to crown, etc., etc. 

There are four caves in the ]>ark, as follows: 

Cloughs cave, situated about thirteen miles a1)o\e Three Rivers, 
on the south fork of the Kaweah river, was discovered by William 
O. Clough in 1885. Owing to its ease of access and its location on a 
main route of tourist travel, it is visited by greater numbers than 



66 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

any of the otliers. 

Palmers cave, discovered by Joe Palmer, is situated uear Put- 
nam canyon on the south fork of the Kaweah. Owing to the almost 
inaccessible position of entrance, it has never been explored. 

Paradise cave is located on the south side of the ridge which 
separates the middle and the east forks of the Kaweah and was 
discovered in 1901 l)y H. R. Harmon. In 1906 it was ex]:)lored by 
"Walter Fry and C W. Blossom, park rangers, and officially named. 

OROSI 

Due west from Dinuba six miles and almost directly north of 
Msalia sixteen miles is situated the flourishing town and colony 
of Orosi. The foothills curve around the section immediately north 
of the townsite, a great deal of the colony lying in the cove thus 
formed. 

Prior to 1890 grain farming was ])ractically the only industry. 
There were few inhabitants. By reason of insufficient rainfall 
crops were not sure and there was no material iirogress. The 
extension of the Alta Irrigation district to this section and the 
subdivision of the lands into ten, twenty and forty acre tracts 
rapidly worked a marvelous change, and the district now is thickly 
settled and solidly planted to orchards and vineyards in small 
lioldings. The avenues which criss-cross the tracts are well-kept, 
many of these are bordered by fig, almond, or other fruit trees of 
a different kind from that to which the orchard is set, and as fences 
have generally been removed ])oth from the roadside and boundary 
lines, a very unique and pleasing effect is produced. 

In 1890 or 1891, at the same time as the heavy initial planting 
of grapes and ]>eaches, several small orange orchards were set. These 
duly came into bearing and demonstrated the adaptability of the 
Orosi country for oranges. (j)uite recently large acreages in the 
vicinity have been planted to this fruit and there have been heavy 
purchases of land lying in adjoining coves for this pur^iose. 

The town of Orosi maintains three general mei'chaudise stores, 
many shops, two banks, handsome school buildings for both grammar 
and high school grades, a hotel and branch library. 

It was quite a disappointment to the citizens of Orosi when 
the Santa Fe passed the town by leaving it a mile and a half from 
Cutler, the nearest station. The town and colony continued to grow, 
however, and it is now confidently believed by the residents that the 
"Tide Water and Southern" will be extended to pass through 
Orosi. 

NARAN.TO 

The name Xaranjo (Spanish for orange tree) is given to the 
citrus district lying along the foothills north of Lemon Cove and 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 67 

across tlie Kaweali rive'r. It was tlie first section north of the river 
to be set to fruit and is now a lieavy producer of oranges and 
grape fruit. The orcliardists liave their own packing house and are 
served by tlie Visalia electric railroad. There is a store and ])Ost- 
office. "Westward, Naranjo merges into the newer Woodlake district. 

MONSON 

Situated on the Soutliern Pacific's east side line and lying north 
of \'isalia and southward from Diiiul)a is a sniall village with one 
general merchandise store, a few shops, etc. 

It is quite an important watermelon shipping point. Farming 
and dairying are the principal occupations of the neighborhood on 
the south, and raisin growing and deciduous fruit culture on the 
north. 

ORIOLE LODGE 

Some fourteen miles above Three Rivers on tlie northern flank 
of the east fork of the Kaweah, nestles beaneath the ])ines a lovely 
mountain tarn called Oriole lake. Its outlet forms a picturesque 
little stream which abounds in trout. 

Near the lake is quite a bit of comparatively level land origin- 
ally the homestead location of "Uncle Dan" Highton. The location 
possessed such natural advantages for a delightful summer resort 
that a number of local residents, under the leadership of A. G. 
Ogilvie, formed, in 1910, a stock com|:)any, purchased a site and are 
at present engaged in the erection thereon of artistic bungalows and 
other eipiipment. They have installed a sawmill and are cutting 
the material on the ground. The new road to Mineral King, soon 
to be comijleted, will render the place easy of access. 

VENICE 

The town of Woodville had, in 1S57, dwindled to almost nothing, 
when its revival was attenqjted by 1). B. James under the name of 
Venice. The new town was not to be on the site of the old, but 
further north near the southwestern corner of the Venice hills, and 
on the north side of the St. John river. At that time the St. Jolm 
river extended but a short distance further west, there sinking into 
a swamp. 

By reason of the fact that in hauling freight from Stockton 
to Visalia, in order to avoid bogs and swamps, it was preferable 
to travel by this route to Visalia, the new town grew and prospered. 
In addition to James' store and postoffice there came to be a 
saloon, boarding liouse, blacksmith shoji, chair factory, distillery, 
Imtcher shop and billiard hall. 

In the flood of IHG'2, however, almost the whole of the town was 
destroyed, and a continuous channel was opened from the sink of 
the St. John to Canoe creek and thence to Cross creek, thus forming 



68 TULAEP] AND KINGS COUNTIES 

the St. ,I<)lm river of today. Just below tlio site of the town, wliere 
the cement rock formation in the bed of the river Ijeeame thinner, a 
fall eight feet in height was formed. During- the flood of '68 this 
fall was entirely channeled out, and the stream was so broadened 
as to occujiy much of the former townsite. 

No attempt was made to rebuild the town and the settlement 
in the neighborhood decreased until once again the region became 
almost abandoned, and remained so until very recent years, when 
the discovery of the thermal belt lying round these hills has placed 
growth on a substantial and ]iermanent basis, and Venice Cove, 
still further north, became the center of the district's population. 

KLINK 

Northwesterly from "^'enice Cove, on the Southern Pacific branch 
line, is the station of Klink, lying between Taurusa on the north 
and Kaweali on the south. For many years it was only a spur from 
which occasional shipments of wood and fruit were made. The suc- 
cess of the orange groves at Venice Cove has stimulated planting 
in the similar soil abutting the railroad near Klink, so that now 
quite a district is embraced by the new planting of the neighborhood. 
A general store has been established and it is exjiected that the 
railroad company will soon erect a suitable depot and install a 
regular agent. 

WAUKENA 

About ten miles southwestward from Tulare City was a noted 
stock grazing country known as the Crossmore ranch. Several 
years ago a syndicate of Los Angeles capitalists purchased this 
ranch of twelve thousand acres and arranged a great colony scheme. 
The lands lie in the artesian belt, and there are a number of flowing- 
wells. Besides dividing the lauds up so as to be sold in small hold- 
ings, a town was laid out with broad boulevards and parks. The 
place — this on-coming- city — the jiroprietors named Waukena, the 
beautiful. The tracts did not sell as readily as anticipated. On 
the comj^letion of the Santa Fe railroad from Tulare to (^orcoran, 
passing- through the tract, a depot was established, and a small 
village has grown u]) there. The soil in the vicinity is well adapted 
to alfalfa and the rapidly develo])ing dairy industry is- making- for 
the increased iirosperity of the neighboi-hood. 

WOODLAKE 

Woodlake, situated some fifteen miles northeasterly from ^^isalia, 
between Naraujo and Kedbanks and near the north shore of Bravo 
lake, is a to-wn whose growth during the three or four years of its 
existence has been so phenomenal as to merit especial mention. 

The town is now solidly and substantially built, having- a hand- 
some two-story hotel with pressed brick front; several shops, a large 



Tl^.ARE AND KINGS COUNTIES (59 

concrete sai'ii."^'' «' ii'eiifi'Ml store, a new.spa])er, a l)aiik aud oilier 
features. During' the present year an auction sale of town lots was 
held and (piite lii.yli prices were realized. Cement sidewalks and 
graded avenues are in evidence here as in the sulturlis of a large 
city. 

Development of this district began in 1907, when Jason Barton, 
J. W. Fewell aud xVdolph Sweet ]>urchased a large tract on the east 
side of Cottonwood creek, in Elder and Townsend school districts, 
and situated about three miles north of Bravo lake. These men 
commenced extensive development work with the view to selling off 
tracts for colonists. Abundant water was foimd and cement pipe 
built and laid to carry it to the sul)divisions. A consideral)le acreage 
was planted. This colony was called Elderwood and a store and 
postoffice of that name was established. 

Now appeared on the scene Gilbert Stevenson of Los Angeles, 
a man of means and of great enterprise who, greatly' impressed with 
the showing the young trees had made in growth and the fact that 
they had remained untouched by frost, purchased a large tract to 
the southward, started a colony and founded a town, calling it 
Woodlake. The two districts, which merge into one are now called 
by this name, although South Woodlake and North AVoodlake are 
sometimes heard. 

The entire section has developed with magical rapidity and the 
brown hills that a few years ago were held worthless except for 
a scant spring ]iasturage are now set to groves and handsome 
residences are l)uilding in great number. 

CALIFORNI.'V HOT SPRINGS 

The California Hot Springs, formerly known as the Deer 
Creek Hot Springs, were long used by the Indians, and have for 
many years been a favorite cam]iing sjiot for people in quest of game 
or health. 

These springs are located about thirty miles southeast of Porter- 
ville, and twenty-two miles from Ducor. The springs are large 
streams of water, clear and sparkling and hot, gushing out of the 
rocks. Thousands of barrels run off daily into Deer creek. The 
daily flow is estimated at 190,()(){) gallons. The springs are in the 
edge of the ])ine forest, and are surrounded by groves of live oak 
and ])ine. The waters are highly charged with minerals. 

Tlu' lands surrounding the springs were originally taken up 
by the Witt fainilx-, early settlers in that section of the county. In 
1898, it was owned l)y T^ J. and N. B. Witt. In that year the pro]i- 
erty was sold to L. S. Wingrove, G. K. Pike and .1. V. Eirebaugh. 
These men were fi'om Lindsay and Exeter. In Ajn-il, 1!)()1, Dr. C. E. 
Bernard of "N^isalia, bought out the I'irebaugh-Pike interests, and 
until 1904 condu<'1('(l the |)i-o])erty under the name of Bernard anil 



70 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

^Viugrove. i)r. Bernard liaviiig died, liis interest was in I'JOo pur- 
chased by S. Mitchell of Visalia, and J. 11. Williams of Poi'terville. 
In the following' June tlie owners incorporated under the name 
California Hot Springs, Inc. The present owners are Mrs. p]dith H. 
Williams, of San Diego; S. Mitchell, of Visalia; L. S. Wingrove and 
Joseph Mitchell of Hot S^Drings. 

The springs are far and widely known for their curative prop- 
erties, especially for relief from rheumatic troul)les, and a host of 
other complaints. Some of the springs have a temperature of one 
Imndred and thirty degrees, while others are cold. Tlie waters are 
used for drinking and bathing. 

The springs are reached by stages from Porter\ille or Ducor, 
or by automobile or any other vehicle. The roads are kept in good 
condition. Many from ^"isalia make the trip there by auto. Lying 
back in the mountains are tine streams for trout and ranges for deer. 
Not being in the National park, hunting is a luxury in which one may 
here indulge. 

TEERA BELLA 

Years ago, before the establishment of warehouses in various 
towns on the east side of Tulare county, Terra Bella was the largest 
wheat shipping point in the state of California. The country was 
farmed in immense tracts, whole sections being included in a single 
piece of grain. The homesteaders had found this virgin stretch of 
country, but, later, many had deserted it, having experienced a suc- 
cession of "dry" years, several in number, much to their disap])oiut- 
ment. Wheat raising continued ])rofitable in good years, but the 
possibilities of the fertile soil, extending for nuiny miles in every 
direction from the station at Terra Bella (beautiful earth), appealed 
to the keen insight of the ])romoter, who, fortified with results ob- 
tained in a small way Ity citrus ])lanters, apjireciated the fact that 
with the development of water at reasonable cost, the entire area 
could be transformed into profitable orange and lemon oi-chards. 

Accordingly, the subdivision of several sections of land in and 
about Terra Bella was taken up three years ago by the Terra Bella 
Development Company, which corporation later passed from the 
hands of P. J. S. Montgomery and associates to a coterie of wealthy 
Los Angeles men, including Marco H. llellman, G. A. Hart, W, H. 
Holliday, F. C. Ensign, W. A. Francis, and others. Since that time 
ra[)id strides have been made, both in the planting and imiirovement 
of orange groves and in the building of a town, modern in every 
respect, — the pride of its builders and the envy of many ambitious 
contemporaries. 

Several thousand acres of oranges have been jdanted in the 
Terra Bella district with very good results, and the jjlanting is 
being continued every year, willi many new residents coming in. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 71 

Terra Bella as a town is, for its age, in a class l)y itself, having 
graded and oiled streets, cement walks and cnrbing, circulating water 
system, septic sewerage system, electric power and Hglits, telephone, 
a fine new $15,000 grammar school building, a $30,000 two-story brick 
hotel, a two-story brick business block erected at a cost of $45,000, 
a two-story brick structure housing the First National Bank of Terra 
Bella, a growing financial institution managed by T. M. (Ironen, 
cashier; a mission style passenger station on the Southern Pacific, 
perhaps the handsomest station on that line in the county; a weekly 
newspaper; Wells Fargo express, etc. The population is growing, 
and indications are favorable for a splendid town. Terra Bella is 
situated about eight miles southwest of Porterville and five miles 
north of Ducor, another growing town in the new citrus belt which 
is also being transformed from wheat fields to a prosperous little 
city. 

DUCOR AND RICHGEOVE 

The town of Ducor is on the line of the Southern Pacific, soi;th 
from Terra Bella about four miles. It is the jioint of departure 
for stages to the California Hot Springs. The principal improve- 
ment at Ducor at this time is the construction of a large two-story 
brick building, in whic-h will l^e housed the First National Bank of 
Ducor, financed by leading citizens of that community. A fine two- 
story hotel and a two-story school house have been l)nilt, street 
improvements made, two churches erected, a fine ])ark laid out and 
]ilanted in trees and shrubbery. Numerous fine orange groves have 
lieen set out in the A'icinity of Ducor, with more planting this year, 
while several large tracts are now being subdivided for sale to citrus 
l)lanters. 

Both Terra Bella and Ducor are wideawake towns, with com- 
mercial organizations, and the planted area will demand shortly 
the construction of citrus packing houses in both i)laces. 

South of Ducor, in Tulare county, is another rich citrus section, 
Richgrove, where extensive improvements are being made by the 
same people who are promoting Terra Bella. Numerous tracts are 
being set in orange groves this spring. 

All of this territory has the benefit of reasonable water conditions 
for irrigation, thermal climate for the growing of citrus fruits, and 
olives, good transportation and power facilities. 

There is every reason to believe that the country from Terra 
Bella south to Richgrove will be one of the most productive and 
most prosperous sections in the early orange belt of Tulare county. 

FARMERSVILLE 

Farmer.sville, seven miles easterly from A'isalia, is next to 
Visalia the oldest settlement in the county. 



72 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

The early settlers naturally made their homes in clearings 
along the creek bottoms, and near Outside creek and Deep creek 
farming operations commenced in the early '50s, and a larger 
number of farmers settled in this vicinity than in any other. 

The townsite was located in 18()0 by John W. Crowley, and a 
relative named Jasper established a general merchandise store. The 
overland stage passed through the liurg and a postoffice was located 
in the store. T. J. Brundage succeeded as manager of the store and 
as postmaster and has made this his home ever since, aiding by 
every means in his power all enter]irises tending to increase the 
welfare of the comnuinity. One of his sons still conducts the store 
and is lieavily interested in farm lands and active in the develop- 
ment of the surrounding territory. 

The first great factor in Parmersville's prosperity was the 
construction of the People's ditch. The Consolidated People's Ditch 
Company had olitained water rights dating from the '(iOs, and early 
in the '70s their canal throligh this section was completed. At the 
time the town was established, thousands of acres of land were under 
irrigation, and the vicinity soon became known as one of the choicest 
garden spots of the county. 

The name Farmersville somehow fits the place, not that here 
are more farmers than elsewhere, but that the tyiiical old-time ])rod- 
ucts of the farm, such as corn and jiumpkins and i)otatoes grow to a 
degree of size and ])erfection seldom obtained. Chinese gai'deners 
quickly selected the locality as best adapted to their ])urpose and as 
soon as the growth of the other communities warranted, established 
fine vegetable gardens here, distributing the product over a wide 
territory. 

The Briggs orchard, some three miles west of Farmersville, 
was the first extensive one in the county to come into bearing, and 
its first crops of 1888 and 1889 brought such a phenomenal return 
tliat a veritable boom in deciduous tree planting resulted. 

Pinkham & McKevitt, large fruit packers of Vacaville, with 
some associates, bought and set out the Giant Oak and California 
Prune Company orchards of several hundred acres each; scores of 
individuals planted smaller tracts and in '91 A. C. Kuhn, a San Jose 
dried fruit packer, purchased the Arcadia Eanch of about one 
thousand acres and set the same to fruit. This orchard has since 
passed into the hands of the California Fruit Canners Association, 
and has become one of the largest, best and most profitable in the 
state. 

Farmersville has lieconie a fruit center of no mean proportion, 
hundreds of carloads of fruit going forward annually as the product 
of its groves. The Farmersville prunes have come to be recognized 



TULARE AND KTX(3S C'()UNTIF]S 73 

by dealers as of superior grade, second in size and quality to none 
produced in the San Joaquin valley. 

The Visalia electric road, which i)asses tlirough this section 
and makes stops at nearly every cross roads, as well as at Farmers- 
ville proper, is a great convenience to the residents. One section of 
the town clusters at the old site on tlie county road, where are the 
stores and sehoolhouse, but near the railroad station, altout a mile 
north, another village nucleus is forming which soon, no doubt, 
will recjuire trading facilities of its own. 

CAMP NELSON 

AI)ove Springville about seventeen miles, between the south 
and middle forks of the Tule river, at an elevation of aliout 4500 
feet is the delightful summer resort known as Nelsons. At present 
the place is reached by a ti-ail about eight miles in length connect- 
ing with the wagon road at the forks of the river. 

While the retreat is surrounded by pines, there is nmch tillable 
land and berries, vegetables and fruits are raised to perfection. The 
meadow land grows timothy hay and there is quite a large apple 
orchai'd. At this elevation the summer climate is cool and pleasant 

Not alone for the outing pleasures in the immediate vicinity, 
however, has Nelsons become noteworthy. By reason of its location 
on the route to the Little Kern, Big Kern, Kern Lakes, Mt. Whitney 
and other points of interest in the higher Sierras it has grown to 
be an equipping station for tourists. A hundred pack and saddle 
animals are maintained for this service. 

CAMP BADGER 

Away uj) in the Sierras, east of the Dinuba country and near 
the Fresno county line, is Camp Badger. This is a stage station 
and a small village surrounded by a fine grazing country. It is on 
the road into the high Sierras and to some of the big lumber camps. 
It is an important place for summer campers to spend a time in the 
cool mountain air away from the heat of the valley. Some of the 
wildest and grandest scenery in the world lies in the high Sierras 
beyond, ])oints which are readily accessilile from Camp Badger. 

It lies ill the edge of the jiine belt and in tlic early days was a 
very imjiortant cam]) for teamsters and lumliermen. The lirst saw- 
mills in the county were set u)i in the pineries near Badger. At 
one time there were as many as two hundred and fifty teams hauling 
hmiber from the mills thiongli Ciiiiip Badger and down the Cotton- 
wood creek to Visalia. 

There is little of the former glory left to Badger, a store, ]iost- 
office and school lieing the only industries of today. The surround- 
ing countrv is laruclv dc\'ot('d to stockraising. 



74 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 



AI^CKLAND 

Ou tlie old Millwood road, going up Cottouwood creek, the first 
station was Auckland. As early as 1866 Mr. Harmon preempted 
the lands where the postoffice and store are. Soon afterward James 
Barton preempted the adjoining place. Stockraising was the princi- 
pal business of the early settlers and is likewise that of most of the 
l>resent settlers. General farming is carried on to a limited extent. A 
postoffice, general store and school make up the town. 

Several thrifty apple orchards producing fruit of an excellent 
quality are in the vicinity and this culture is engaging the attention 
of a number of new settlers. 

K.iWEAH STATION 

Kaweah is nt)f yet a town, merely a railroad station without an 
agent, but so rapidly is a thickly settled community clustering to 
the north of this station that a store has already been established 
and a little town will probably result. If so, it will be very close — 
within a stone's throw almost — of the site of Woodville, the historic 
village first foimded in the county. 

The school and voting jirecinct are called ^"enice and the district 
is well adai)ted to general farming, fruit and dairying. The reten- 
tion of several large tracts liy wealthy non-resident owners has here- 
tofore retarded development somewhat. 

The Jacob Bros, farm, orchard and nursery is located about a 
half-mile east of the station. This farm, comprising several hundred 
acres, has such a diverse number of products that a constant income 
throughout the vear is secured. 



TULARE AND KINCJS COUNTIES 75 



CHAPTER VIII 
PORTERVILLE AND OTHER TOWNS 

In tlie southeastern part of Tulare county, situated on a branch 
of the Tule river and connected with the cities of Los Angeles and 
San Francisco by a branch line, which joins the main Southern Pa- 
cific at Fresno and Famosa, lies the city of Porterville; conceded by 
those who have visited it to he one of the most progressive towns 
of its population in the state. AVhile Porterville is in close proximity 
to the mountains, the foothills do not tend to retard development, 
hut add to the pictnres<|ueness and iirosperity of this .tlniving com- 
munity of thirty-two hundred people. 

Porterville was, of necessity, on the olden immigrant road, and 
on the overland stage line, by reason of the fact that in those days 
it was necessary to kee]t to the high ground to avoid the marshes of 
the lowland. Along the l)ase of the spur of hills wliicli here projects 
into the valley lay the only natural route. Then, as now, passersby 
found the place attractive and many immigrant trains found along the 
banks of the Tule river pleasant cam])ing and resting places, the first 
encountered for da.\s. 

J. i>. Ilockett and jiarty camjjed here in 1849. Mr. Clapp settled 
here in 1856 or '57. In the late '50s a number of settlers had made 
locations and when the Overland Mail from San Francisco to St. 
Louis was established, in 1859, a stage station was located here. Royal 
Porter Putnam was placed in charge of this station at the princely 
salary of $30 ]ier month and board. Mr. Putnam easily took a ]irom- 
inent place, became familiarly known by his middle name and the 
stopping place was soon called Porter's station. When the stage 
route was abandoned, in 1861, Mr. Putnam established a hotel and 
store and then, as befitting the newly-acquired dignity of the jilace, it 
came to be entitled Porterville. 

Cattle raising constituted the chief occupation of the people in 
this district, in the days before the Civil war. The era of the cereal 
commenced in 1874, but floods, followed by drought, disheartened 
some of the settlers. Not until the coming of the railroad in 1888 
did Porterville lift her head and allow prosperity to enter, the latter 
then coming to remain for all time. The orange now began to i)er- 
I'orm a very imiiortant function. The first grove, of sixty trees, was 
planted in 1871) by Demiiig (Jibbons on his ])roi)erty, where now stands 
Piano. These trees were seedlings and for twelve years oranges of 
(|uality or (juantity failed to mature. Added impetus, however, was 
given citi-us culture by A. R. Henry of Pasadena, who has long since 
passed to his reward, and in the year ]80"_' three hundred scattering 
acres had liccn brought uiidci' the reign of the citrus fi-uit. During 



76 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

this year a bill proposiug' the segregation of the Porterville district 
from the rest of Tulare county was introduced in tlie state legislature, 
but was defeated in 1898. To demonstrate the j)Ossibilities of Porter- 
ville, orcliardists installed an exhibit of citrus fruit and a))ples at 
Sacramento. Orange experts and many men prominent in the fruit 
world pronounced tlie fruit ecjual to any grown south of tlie Teliach- 
api, and Porterville retains this distinction to this day. 

Porterville became a town of the sixth class in 1902. when a 
number of enterprising citizens appeared before the solons at Sacra- 
mento. After due legal red tape the charter was granted and Porter- 
ville entered upon a period of united development. Porterville now 
marched rapidly forward until 1908, when l)y a heavy majority. Por- 
terville citizens voted for the abolition of saloons within the incor- 
porated city of Porterville. Two years later voters again declared 
the saloon an outlaw. On April 15, 1912, a drastic ordinance against 
the selling of intoxicants received the unanimous sanction of the city 
council. 

Porterville ranks second to none of Tulare county cities in fine 
business blocks and residences. Itemized building figures would be 
useless, for in Porterville the i)rogress of today is history tomorrow. 
Within the past four years two three-story blocks, several two-story 
and numerous single business blocks have been constructed, all of 
fire-i)roof material and representing a total valuation of .$1.7r)i),000. 
The business district covers an area of six blocks, the business 
houses being of brick and reinforced concrete. More beautiful and 
substantial residences are seldom seen, $500,000 being represented in 
residences erected within the past three years. 

P^ew, if any, towns of the county can present a more imposing 
and practical school structure than has just been completed at a cost 
of $45,000, situated at the west end of Olive street, in the center of 
a district destined to become the residential section of Porterville. 
It is an eight-room school building of mission design, with the latest 
and most approved methods of heating, ventilating and fire-escapes. 
The structure is the most modern of four grammar school buildings, 
in which more than six hundred children receive instruction. Aside 
from adequate primary and elementary departments. Porterville is 
provided with a massive high school building of granite, with a total 
enrollment of over two hundred students and every probaliility of 
twice that number witliin the next two years. Practical courses are 
the si)ecialties of instruction. The cost of Poi'terville's schools aggre- 
gate a total of $120,000. 

Porterville 's municiiial water system is one of the best, $90,000 
liaving been expended in obtaining the most im])roved service. In 
1908. the plant was ]iurchased from the Pioneer "Water Comjjany for 
$50,000. incidentally reducing the water rate twenty-five per cent. 
Since the purchase of the system, $45,000 wortli of iiii))rovements have 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 77 

been addetl. Located upon Scenic Heights, one hundred sixty-tln-ee 
feet above Main street, is a 300,000 gallon water tower, into which 
is innnped ]iure water from two modern plants, the maxinnim capa- 
city of the i)lants being 1,1250,000 gallons every twenty-four hours. 
Two auxilary tanks, one containing 75,000 gallons and a 100,000- 
gallon reservoir, add. amjile jtressure for fire protection. The domes- 
tic supply is furnished by four, six and eight-inch laterals, fed from 
a ten-inch main, the total length of which is eighteen miles. Tlie foot- 
hill lands near Porterville are abundantly supplied by the Pioneer 
Water Company, whose system is cai)able of irrigating seven thou- 
sand acres, the main canal being sixteen miles in length. Deep well 
]mmps are fast disidacing the old irrigation methods, the ])ast year 
witnessing the installation of one hundred and fifty plants. 

Within the past year a $75,000 sewer system has been com- 
l^leted. Nineteen miles of sewer pipe, together with a thirty-acre 
sewer farm, are adecpiate accessories for years to come. 

Pacts and figures show two miles of asphalt streets and ten miles 
of sidewalks, the former having been constructed during the ])ast 
year at a cost of $90,000. Five of the principal thoroughfares, Main, 
Olive, Mill, Putnam and Roche, are the paved streets. 

AVitli tiie completion of street paving, the necessity for ellicient 
fire apparatus was i)re-eminent. A chemical engine and a hose cart, 
proiielled by gasoline, were purchased for $10,000. Porterville was 
the first city in Tulare county to adojit the modern fire-fighting 
device and therefore has a minimum insurance rate. 

In res]>onse to the demand for adequate shipping and packing 
facilities for the citrus industry, eight packing-houses in and near 
Porterville have been established. These employ a small army of 
])eople during the fruit season. Aside from one thousand cars of 
oranges shij^ped annually, Porterville ships many peaches and i)runes. 
Apples rivaling those of the eastern states are grown in the moun- 
tain districts. 

The thriving condition of two creameries, one in Porterville and 
the other nearby, attests the statement that the dairy industry has 
})ossibilities as great as those of the orange. 

A Carnegie library, valued at $10,000, is another of Porterville 's 
acquisitions. The building is filled with the latest productions in 
science, art, general information and fiction. 

Eight religious denominations. Congregational, Methodist, Chris- 
tian, l:>a])tist. Christian Science, C*atholic, Episcojjal and (Jeriiian, are 
represented in Porterville, all these institutions being in a flourishing 
condition. Seven of the denominations possess buildings of more than 
))assing attention. The Congregational church, erected at a cost 
of $25,000, is one of the most beautiful edifices of its kind in the 
valley. A total of $()0,00() is re])resented in these sanctuaries. 

The First National IWuik of I'orterville, one of the strongest bank- 



78 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

ing institutions in Tulare county, was organized June !<, litOo, with a 
subscribed capital of $l25,000. At present the capitalization is $100,000, 
and it has the largest deposit of any bank in the county. The older 
institution, the Pioneer Bank, was organized A\n'il 10, 1889, with a 
subscribed cajntal of $70,000. At the present time this bank is ca])- 
italized for $105,000. 

Among the factors which tend to advance Porterville, of most 
importance is the Chamber of Commerce. Tliis is the largest organ- 
ization of its kind in the San Joaiiuin valley, its membership totaling 
two hundred and fifty. Aside from a continuous and jirogressive 
advertising campaign, a club room for the members is maintained, 
and also a large reading room, banquet hall and billiard ]iarlors. In 
co-ojieration with the Chamber of (^ommerce is the Ladies Imjirove- 
ment Club, a by no means small factor in the development, imjirove- 
ment and maintenance of a clean city. 

A public park of thirty acres is situated at the eastern limits 
of the city. The land for this park was donated by public-spirited 
citizens and $10,000 has been expended in its maintenance and 
improvement. A public lunch jiavilion, ]mblic play grounds for chil- 
dren and other attractive features have been installed. 

An im]iortant factor in Porterville's advancement is the char- 
acter of its newspapers. Two of the most consistent boosting journals 
in the county are represented in the Porterville Daily Eeeorder and 
the Porterville Daily Messenger. Both have weekly editions as suji- 
plementary ])ublications and their financial future is assured. 

Lodges of Porterville include all the leading orders, both bene- 
ficiary and insurance. Ancient Order United Workmen, Porterville 
Lodge No. 1999; Foresters of America, Court Porterville No. ISl ; 
Fraternal Order of Eagles, Porterville Aerie No. 1351; Indejiendent 
Order of Odd Fellows, Porterville Encampment No. 89, Porterville 
Lodge No. 359, Canton Porterville No. 6, Golden Rod Rebekah Lodge 
No. 200; Knights and Ladies of Security, Porterville Council No. 
1917; Knights of Pythias, Porterville Lodge No. 93; Pythian Sisters, 
Callanmra Temple No. 66; Ladies of Maccabees; Masonic, F. & A.M., 
Porterville Lodge No. 303; Royal Arch Masons, Porterville Chapter 
No. 85; Order of Eastern Star, Palm Leaf Chapter No. 114; Modern 
Woodmen of America, Porterville Camp No. 906-t; Royal Neighbors, 
White Rose Cam]) No. 5333; Woodmen of the World, Orange Camp 
No. 333; Women of AVoodcraft, Pomelo Circle No. 292. 

Porterville never has been or never will be a boom town. It has 
grown consistently, and it will continue its advancement, as the neces- 
sary resources, now in their infancy, will always be behind it. To 
the east lie many hundred acres of foothill land yet to feel the orch- 
ardist's band. Farther east and up into the mountains are the famous 
redwood forests, unhindered by monopolists. These forests, together 
with the rich minei'al resources yet to be de\'el()i)ei:l, foi'iu a field of 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 71) 

inestimal)le wealth. Excellent niountain resorts, such as the Califor- 
nia Hot Springs, whose mineral waters equal those of tlie famous 
Arkansas Hot Springs, beckon the tourists from the hot summers 
of the valley. The feeding and fattening of beef cattle also forms 
an imi)ortant occupation of the hill districts. To the south are thou- 
sands of l)are acres unequaled in orange culture. Agricultural and 
dairy industries are assured in the broad plains to the west and to 
the north are produced the linest of navel oranges. — Claude il/. 
CJidpliii. 

DINUBA 

Dinnba is the largest city in northern Tulare county, situated 
along the foothills on the eastern side of the great San Joaquin val- 
le>-. It was nearly thirty years ago that the first settlers made their 
home here, at a time when Traver was a flourishing community and 
Dinuba was but a cross-roads corner. The country was one vast 
wheat field, and it was not thought then that in a generation the entire 
district would be revolutionized and made to Inid and lilossom with 
fruit and flower as it does today. 

The site wliere Dinuba now stands was originally owned by 
James Sil)ley and E. E. Giddings, and at the time the surveyors 
of the Pacific Improvement Company laid ofT the townsite was but 
a vast stubblelield. Later W. D. Tuxlniry bought out Mr. Sibley's 
interest and Mr. Giddings also sold his interests to Mr. Sibley. The 
first lot in the new town was sold liy the Improvement Com])any to 
Dr. Gebliardt, and this was later occupied by the doctor's office, 
(ipl»osite the depot and at the rear of what is now the Alta Garage. 
Homer Hall and H. C. Austin bought four lots on the cornei- where 
the Central Block is now located and on the corner where McCrack- 
en's drug store is situated, Mr. Hall built a $1500 frame Iniilding — 
the finest in the district at that time. The lots cost him $L'50 each 
and cannot be bouglit today for much more than that amount per 
front foot. Here Mr. Hall engaged in the real estate business in 
the fall of 1888. The building was so arranged that there was a 
room adjoining the realty office and this was occupied by I)a\-e and 
Charles Cohn with their general merchandise store. Later the (^'ohn 
Brotliers bought the corner where the United States National Bank 
now stands, and a year later the old "adobe" on the corner where 
the First National bank is now housed in its splendid $20,000 home. 
This adobe was a land mark in the community for years, and was 
occupied with general stores, saloons and other lines, until a little 
over a year ago, when it was taken down for the modern structure 
which lias re])laced it. 

As stated, the next building to be erected after the Hall i)uild- 
ing was the office of Dr. (rel)hardt. Then Frank Elam built a iilack- 
smith shojt on the corner whci'c the Akcrs sho]) and machiue works 



80 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

ai'e now, hnt this Inter Imiiii'd down. As was usual witli a pioneer 
town, the saloon found a place in the irrowtli of the oommnnity, and 
remained here until five years ago. 

A building was moved from south of town by Mrs. Smith, who 
later became Mrs. Toler, and was located on the rear of the Hall 
and Austin lots, and this became the postoffice. Homer Hall was 
the postmaster, and Mrs. Toler was his deputy, later succeeding to 
the oSce of the growing little town. 

About this time the Dinuba Hotel was erected by Sibley and 
Tnxl)ury and ]\fr. and Mrs. Henry Kirkpatrick were the first lessees. 
They are still living south of town. Mine Host Kirkjjatrick was 
succeeded by Matthews and Wheeler as landlords. This same year 
the Southern Pacific depot was built and the ]niblic auction of town 
lots by the railroad took place in the latter part of January, 1889, 
the auction being "cried" by Mr. Shannon, the railroad auctioneer 
from Fresno. The railroad people gave the people gathered a big- 
dinner that day. and the new town of Dinuba was given its start. 

The "Seventy-Six" Land Company had already commenced the 
development of water for irrigation here, and later the Alta Irriga- 
tion District was formed, with loO,000 acres and absorbing the "76" 
system. From that time the district began to develo]i. until five 
years ago the city was incorporated and has grown until today 
there are 1800 peojile here and Dinuba is the largest city lietween 
Visalia and Fresno along the foothills. The city lias fine schools, 
both grammar and high, and seven churches: Baptist, Methodist 
E]iis('o|)al. Christian, IMethodist E)nsco])al South, Presbyterian, Ad- 
vent! st and Church of Christ, Scientist. There are eighteen teachers 
in the inililic schools and nearly six hundred pupils. The city has 
miles of cement sidewalks and paved streets and is reputed as one 
of the cleanest and most attractive cities in the entire west. 

TULAEE 

Tulare, the second city in size in the county, is situated on tlie 
main lines of both, the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe, at their inter- 
section, some ten miles south from Visalia. With a population of 
about 4000, rai)idly growing; with the modern facilities and conven- 
iences common to up-to-date cities of its size; surromided by a thickly- 
settled, fertile, well-watered and productive farming section. Tulare 
does not present in aspect sti^ikiug peculiarities. 

Historically, howevei-. Tulare possesses distinctive prominence. 
A checkered career, marked by a series of staggering misfortunes, 
has been her lot. The adage, "It never rains but it pours," seemed 
peculiarly apjilicable at one time. That " 'Tis always darkest just 
before dawn" ])roved true at last. The record of these events reads 
more like a story than tlie sober chronicle of history. 

The earliest settlers of the county ]iassed 1iy the section in the 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 81 

vicinity of Tulare, because it did nut lie iu the i)atli of water-courses. 
A few real pioneers there were, notably W. F. Cartniill, J. A. More- 
head, J. W. Hooper, 1. N. Wright, the Powell, McCoy, Hough and 
Wallace families, whose homesteads were triliutary to what is now 
Tulare, but no settlement existed in this neigjiborhood prior to the 
coming, in 1872, of the Southern Pacific Railroad. 

Unlike the other railroad towns of the county, however, an im- 
mediate growth followed the sale of lots. In fact, Tulare commenced 
with a l)oom. There was occasion for this, because, according to 
the railroad's plans, which were duly heralded, it was to be the end 
of a division, the site of great railway repair shops, and not least, 
the county seat of Tulare county. In the plats submitted to pros- 
pective investors, the many jjrojected enterprises, as factories, rail- 
road yards, and shops and the courthouse, were outlined. And there 
were many purchasers anxious to get in on the ground floor; the 
town started amidst a general whooji and hurrah. It came to ])ass 
that the railroad slioi)s were erected, i)erliai)s not on quite as exten- 
sive a scale as anticipated, but still there they were, and so, too, were 
several hundred em])loyees, all of whom had to be housed and clothed 
and fed. Consequently there was need for merchants of all kinds, 
and these came. To l)e sure, the courthouse did not materialize. 
This for the reason that Visalia influence secured the ])assage by the 
legislature of a bill permitting Tulai-e county to issue l)onds for the 
purpose of erecting a new courthouse at Visalia. Flourishing enough, 
however, were conditions to cause the town to grow a])ace. Among 
the i)ioneers of industry at this time may be mentioned J. O. Lovejoy. 
who built the first residence in the town, also a mill and a hotel, and 
I. H. Ham, who erected blocks of buildings, both in the business 
and residence sections. 

Many of the railroad employees were men of family and these 
in numbers purchased lots and erected dwellings thereon, to be paid 
for on the installment ])lan. Now were jjlanted gardens and lawns 
and on the sides of many of the principal streets shade trees, and 
all thrived. An ever-growing beauty and an ever-greater prosjiei-ity 
characterized the town. Monthly came the pay car with $.30,UUU to 
$40,000. 

In July, 188o, a disastrous fire swept tiie business section, entail- 
ing a loss of about $150,000 and destroying about twenty-five places 
of business. From the effects of this fire Tulare rapidly recovered. 
Better buildings almost immediately took the ])lace of those burned, 
and bustling progress was promptly resumed. 

Prosperity was uninterrupted for three years only. In 1880, on 
the night of August Kith, the business portion of the city was entirely 
destroyed by fire. The magnitude of this second disaster can scjircely 
now be realized. Nothing was left except, to quote from the Tulare 
Register of the time, "a fringe of residences around a lire-swept 



82 TULAKE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

gap." In the published list of tlie business houses destroyed are 
enumerated seventy-seven — practically all. 

The loss occasioned by this fire was so great, so nearly did it 
take the accumulated savings of all the business men, and so closely 
did it follow the former conflagration, that it might seem that 
endeavor would be paralyzed. 

Knowledge of the town's resources, supposed to be permanent, 
inspired hope and courage, howev^-r. and the town was rebuilt in 
better and more substantial form than before. 

And now, indeed, in the latter part of the '80s, secure once more, 
enjoying renewed prosperity, the inhabitants may be pardoned for 
believing that their troul)les were over; that, having weathered safely 
the storms, they were to have for the remainder of the voyage fair 
weather and tine sailing. 

However, the Fates held the most crushing bolt yet in their hands. 
In 1891 it fell. In that year the railroad company removed its shops 
to Bakersfield, taking tenants and trade. Most dismal and discourag- 
ing was the situation for the villagers who remained. A score of 
merchants found their i)atronage insufficient to make them a living. 
Artisans and other craftsmen were without employment. Rents 
dropped to almost nothing; business houses suspended and closed; 
gardens were neglected and rioted in weeds; dwelling houses dis- 
played first the sign "For Rent," then "For Sale." 

A dreary stagnation ensued for several years, a retreat, as it 
were, before the overwhelming forces of adversity. Houses by the 
score were sold very cheaply and moved to different portions of the 
county. Tulare was looked upon as dead beyond hope of recovering. 

And yet to the sturdy resident who refused to be a quitter came 
the insistent query, Why ? He looked around at the vast expanse of 
fertile land surrounding the town and again asked. Why! The 
answer that farming tried on a big scale, wheat farming, had failed, 
because of insufficient rainfall or insufficient sul)-irrigation did not 
satisfy him. He said "If it is water that is lacking, why. we will 
get water. AVe will make this land produce the abundant crops 
Nature intended and we shall become a rich and prosperous com- 
munity, self-supporting, independent of railroad patronage." 

And from this resolve a great irrigation system was jilanned 
with wide canals and far-reaching laterals. To carry out this project 
the people in the territory to be embraced formed the Tulare Irriga- 
tion District and voted bonds in the sum of $500,000. 

AVith the bonds selling readily, the vast irrigation enterprise 
giving emploATuent to an army of men well imder way, the vast 
benefits that would accrue on its completion readily foreseen every- 
one again felt encouraged and hopeful. All trouble was now thought 
to be over. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIP]S 83 

As a matter of fact, it had just begun. Litigatiuii oxer water 
rights involved the new district from the start. Finally, largely from 
this cause the money was all spent and there was no water, or at 
least, not sufficient water. 

Remember, all this occurred just as the general hard times and 
financial depression of '93 were being most severely felt. The result 
was that default was made on the interest on the bonds. Conditions 
became almost intoleralile. Lack of funds prevented proper u])keep 
of the canals. There was no water to speak of and yet there was 
an ever-increasing indebtedness that with the dragging weight of 
an incubus prevented any onward ]»rogress. 

Land depreciated in xalue until it practically became unsalable. 
Discouragement gave place to despondenc.v and despair. 

Joe Goldman and other progressive citizens of Tulare finally 
evolved a plan to try to coni])romise with the bondholders. They suc- 
ceeded in securing a concession whereby the bonds and accrued inter- 
est, aggregating $750,000, could be willed out for about $273,000. 

An assessment was levied in the fall of 19i)'2 upon the real estate 
of the bonded district sufficient to cover the amount, the bonds were 
placed in escrow and strenuous efforts, ultimately successful, were 
made to collect the money. 

October 17, 1903, was the day appointed for the exchange. A 
monster celeliration was held in honor of the event and the cancelled 
bonds were burnt in the presence of the assemblage amidst the great- 
est rejoicings. That day marked the turning point in Tulare's career. 
Progress since has been rapid and increasing. The irrigation system 
is now the property of tlie district and the only expense for water 
is the cost of maintenance. Pumping jilants, irrigating lands not 
reached by the ditches, have also been installed in great numbers, 
bringing into production thousands of additional acres. 

Having become the center of the dairy district of the county, 
possessing three of the largest creameries, Tulare city now enjoys 
a ]iermanently assured large and increasing income. Vineyards, de- 
ciduous fruits of all kinds and many other products contril)ute also, 
but the sum received from the sale of cream, now over $100,000 i)er 
month, is of first im])ortance, not only because of tlie amount. Init 
because it is paid in cash each month. 

Tulare merchants enjoy the benefits of a cash trade and their 
customers partake of the benefits by reason of lower iirevailing prices 
than in towns where a credit system is in greater vogue. 

The present ra[)id growth of Tulare is well indicated liy the build- 
ing ojjerations, which for the past two years have run about $250,000 
per year. 

Tulare possesses a first-class sewer system, an abundant supply 
of absolutely pure water piped ever>-where, electric power and lights, 



84 TULARK AND KINGS COUNTIES 

o-as for fuel and li.Klitiiiii'. Thei'e is a largo cannery, three creameries, 
a flour mill and a planing mill and furniture factory. A handsome 
free lil)rary liuilding- houses a six thousand volume collection of books. 
New school Iniildings witli the best modern equij^ment and with ex- 
tensive surrounding playgrounds and experimental plats are a feature. 

There are two banks, two daily newspapers and corresponding- 
business facilities of all kinds. Ten churches of as many denomina- 
tions minister to the reUgious needs of the people. 

Of the early improvements made in the days of the railroad shop 
and "before the fire" one only remains, and that is the shade trees 
planted along the streets. These, now about thirty years old, have 
grown to be of great girth and. wide-spreading, their tops almost 
meet above the broad streets. 

LEMON COVE 

Eighteen miles east of Visalia the foothill slopes to the north 
and south of the Kaweah river approach at an angle to form a 
sheltered vale, which with the village and postoffice there located, 
is called Lemon Cove. 

Originally the settlement and postoffice went by the name of 
Lime Kiln, from the early discovery of lime in the vicinity by Wil- 
liam Cozzens. 

J. W. C. Pogue, one of the earliest settlers, was the founder of 
the town and the father of the great development in citrus culture 
that has taken jjlace in recent years. The first orange orchard in 
Tulare county was planted by him. The successful growth of these 
first few orange and lemon trees and the entire freedom from frost 
noted during the years u]) to their coming into bearing, led him to 
]ilant a second orchard and to become a whole-souled, energetic ]iro- 
moter for the section. 

In the early '9()s a considerable acreage was ])lanted to citrus 
fruits, mostly lemons. In addition to many small tracts, the large 
gi-oves of the Kaweah Lemon Company and the Ohio Lemon Com- 
pany were set. 

A little story must be told here, for at this time the learned Mc- 
Adie, our well-known weather jirophet, in company with a numlier 
of friends, ]:)aid a visit to the high Sierras, reached by way of 
Lemon Cove. On the return the large i)lantings of young lemon 
groves attracted attention and Mr. McAdie iiroceeded to comment 
thereon in the presence of Mr. Pogue and other residents. 

McAdie explained that citrus fruits would not mature in the 
locality and that it was a foolish waste of time and money to jilant 
them. Reasons scientific, technical and meteorological were given 
to prove it. Old Jim Pogue, boiling inwardly and scarcely able to 
contain himself, finally interru]ited and said, "Come here a minute; 
got something to show yon." Taking McAdie by the arm he led him 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 85 

to tlie rear of liis residence, wiiere sti'etelied a i'ull-heariiin' orang-e 
and lemon grove, the brandies loaded with the yellowing frnit and 
said, "There, you dad l)lanie fool, there they he." 

About a thousand bearing aeres now add their testimony to that 
of Mr. Pogue. The lemon has a more delicate nature and more sus- 
ceptible to frost than the oran,s>e. Lemon Cove is one of the few 
])laces in the state where sufficient frost ])rotection is obtained. 

Lemon Cove is the outer gateway to the Sierras of tlie Kaweah 
watershed and in consequence enjoys a consideral)ie tourist trade. 

Tlie town, tiioui^h sinall, is thrivin,"- and lirowini;-. Citrus fi-uit 
packing and shi])i)in.i;- causes much activity durin,^' tlie season. Tliree 
packing houses handle the cro]), which now amounts to al)()ut four 
hundred carloads annually. 

A two-story hotel, lar.ne .i^eueral store, livery stable, l)lacksmith 
shops, bakery and butcher shop make up the town. 

SULTANA 

Sultana, one of the new towns created by the construction of 
the Santa Fe Railroad in ISiXi, lies three miles due east from Dinuba 
and is just half-way between that city and Orosi. 

Sultana, situated as it is in the very midst of a solidly planted 
area of orchards and vineyards, has become an important shipi:)ing 
point, both for fresh and dried fruits and raisins and for water- 
melons. 

Being so near the larger city, which has the advantage of lying 
on lioth lines of railroad. Sultana will ])robably never grow to be a 
large city. On the other hand, its existence is amply justified by 
the large and rajiidly increasing rural ])0]iulation surrounding it. 

LINDSAV 

Lindsay is situated in tlie very center of the most extensively 
develo))ed section of Tulare county's orange belt, lying about twelve 
miles north of Porterville and eighteen miles southeast from Visalia, 
on the east side branch of the Southern Pacific. 

Orange groves in solid formation and stretchin.o- miles in all 
directions, approach to and extend into the city. 

Unlike any of the other towns of the county, diviersified products 
do not contribute to the enrichment of city and country here. Orano-es 
exclusively are now grown and this fact, in connection with the 
large area of land in the vicinity suited to this culture, has made 
Ijindsay the .greatest orange shipjiins' ])oint in the county and many 
believe that within a few yoai's it will be the most important in the 
state. 

'i'hirteen large packing houses, equipped with the best modern 
facilities and machinery, and having a combined capacity of eighty 
carloads ])cr day, are required to handle the output, which now 
amounts to alK)ut two thousand carloads. 

6 



86 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Eiisiuess during the harvest season, -n-lieu the handling of the 
immense crop requires the labor of an army of pickers, packers, 
box-makers, etc., is, of course, especially brisk. 

The city now contains a population of about twenty-five hundi-ed 
and is growing rapidly. There are two daily newspapers, two banks, 
three machine shops, a foundry, a planing mill, two cement works 
and a talcum powder mill. Two electric companies give power foi 
lighting, heating and pumping. Gas mains will be laid in the near 
future. 

Lindsay was incorporated as a city of the sixth class February 
28, 1910, the corporate limits containing an area of nine hundred 
and sixty acres. The government was placed in the hands of a city 
council, composed of W. B. Kiggens, president; Allen McGregor, P. 
T. Ostrander, Basil Pryor and Charles 0. Cowles, and Marshal 
William Gann; city clerk, AV. H. Mack; treasurer, G. V. Keed. 

In 1911, bonds in the sum of $130,000 were voted for the pur- 
pose of acquiring a municipal water plant and for the construction 
of a sewer system. 

Fifty-five thousand dollars was devoted to the purchase of the 
plant of the Lindsay Water and Gas Company and the better- 
ment and enlargement of the system. An additional pumping plant 
was installed, mains extended to cover the entire city, and other 
improvements effected. 

The sewer system, to which $75,000 was devoted, is of modern 
type and substantial construction, built by Haviland & Tibbetts of 
San Francisco. Provision for the disiDosal of sewage was made 
by the purchase by the city of a ninety-acre tract, situated some 
two and a half miles from the city. Preparations for farming this 
tract directly by the city is now being undertaken. 

Lindsay possesses school facilities considered superior to those 
of any city of similar size in the state. These consist of three 
grammar school and one high school Imildings, with extensive 
grounds, representing an investment of $70,000. 

The appearance of Lindsay is made attractive by the nearly 
uniform excellence of both business structures and residences. There 
are six miles of concrete sidewalks and the streets are generally 
well graded, firm and smooth. 

The growth of Lindsay, while never of a mushroom character, 
has been exceedingly rapid, about fifteen years only having been 
required for it to reach its present status as one of the most 
important cities of the county. 

Nowhere else in the county has a more complete, radical and 
rapid transformation in characteristics been effected than in the 
section around Lindsay. 

When the overland stage line to St. Louis was established in 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 87 

'59, a station called the Eighteen-Mile House was erected a little 
south and west of the present town on the old Porterville road. 
Between Outside creek near Farmersville and Porterville this was 
the only house, and it remained so for many years. The country 
between was a dreary hog-wallow waste considered worthless except 
for spring feed. 

As stock raising became a more important industry ranches 
were located in the foothills where water from springs or creeks 
was to be found and in the spring-time the flocks were removed to 
the adjoining plains and temporary camps established there. 

This constituted all of the development until the early '80s, 
when the coming of the railroad through the valley gave an impetus 
to wheat growing. 

After a few good crops had demonstrated the profits to be made 
in this culture some enterprising men of the period jumped in and 
proceeded to raise wheat on a large scale. 

In the Lindsay district J. J. Cairns, G. S. and W. S. Berry, and 
others, as the Keeley's and William Mehrten (known as Dutch Bill) 
farmed ]iractically the entire territory from north of Exeter to 
Porterville, including a large area to the west of Lindsay. 

J. J. Cairns alone put in in one year 25,000 acres and was 
rejjuted to have cleared up $50,000 on the crop. The lands upon 
which these wheat kings operated were not owned liy them, but 
were leased, usually upon shares, and lay in separated tracts. Al- 
though most of the country thus came under cultivation, no material 
progress resulted. Plowing and seeding outfits with temporary 
camps moved from place to place during the winter season and 
temporary movable quarters also sufficed for the harvest time. 
Neither did any permanent profit inure to the few men engaged in 
this lordly farming, as seasons of drought wiped out the profits 
from years of plenty. 

In 1888 the east side branch of the Southern Pacific railroad was 
completed and Lindsay was made a station and given a siding. 
Capt. A. J. Hutchinson donated fifty-one per cent, of the townsite 
for this concession, but this was not considered sufficient inducement 
for the erection of a depot and it was not until two years later, when 
Mr. Hutchinson donated more land, that one was built. 

In 1889, however, the McNear comjiany ei'ecfed a large grain 
warehouse on the track and a few business liouses sprang up to 
care for the wants of the sparse and largely floating population. 
Charles Eankin opened a general store and Ed and George lianna- 
ford started a Jiotel and a few other shops followed. 

The new era began in 1891 when Captain Hutchinson began the 
active iiromotion of the section for orange culture, placing twenty- 
five hundred acres of land on the market for this purpose. 

Previously John Tuohy, on his Lewis creek ranch, had planted 



88 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

a number of orange trees, the g-rowth of which had shown the 
a(hi])tahility of soil and climate. J. J. Cairns had set out a small 
orchard, and Captain Hutchinson himself had the previous year 
set out an experimental grove of five acres. Mr. Cairns also had put 
down a well, the first in the district for irrigating purposes, and 
had proven the existence of a great a\ailable water supply. 

To Mr. Hutchinson, however, projjerjy Itelongs the credit for 
being the founder of the community, as througli his enterprise de- 
velopment on a larger scale was undertaken and the district's merits 
exploited in a way to attract attention from many men of prominence 
who became identified with the section's development. 

Thomas E. Johnson of San Jose and C. J. Carle were among 
the first outsiders to whom the locality made a strong appeal and 
these, both by their own efforts and through their influence, became 
important factors in furthering the growth of the community. 

About four hundred acres were set out in 1891, more tlian 
double that in 1892, and considera]>ly more in the years following. 
Not until 189(i and 1897, however, when returns came in from the 
first orchards planted, did the boom, as it may be called, set in that 
has lasted until the iiresont day and gives no signs of al)ating. 

Southern California growers in general had not thought it 
possible that oranges could be grown commercially north of Tehachapi. 
When the Lindsay groves first began to produce oranges and get 
them east in time for the Thanksgiving market, the fact attracted 
wide attention in the south. Many growers visited this section, fore- 
saw its possibilities and invested. 

Lindsay has proven an exceptionally fine locality for hustlers 
of limited means. By reason of the rapid rise in land values and 
on account of the prevailing activity in all lines of business due 
to the rush in leveling, planting and installation of pumping jilants 
unusual opportunities have offered themselves. Lindsay boasts a 
large number of citizens who. entering the field without a dollar, 
now measure their wealth in five figures. 



CHAPTER IX. 
ANECDOTES 

ADVENTURES WITH INDIANS 

In the adventures of the early settlers with the Indians, there 
was frequently an element of humor, sometimes of tragedy. There 
are no other instances, however, that quite equal for the mixture of 
these two elements the two misadventures that befell Fred or "old 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 89 

iiiau" Steiuiiuiu. lu 1854 or '55 Steinmaa, who lived southwesterly 
from Visalia a few miles, went on a huuting trip iieai- what is now 
Corcoran on the Maluiran sh)u,nh. He was looking for deer, and 
the timhered country near this slough looking good to him, he tied 
his teani and proceeded cautiously afoot. He had not traveled far 
when he espied five or six deer, whereupon he dodged into the 
slough, and stealthily made his way to a point which he judged to 
be directly ojiposite them. Raising cautiously up, he discovered one 
big buck within range, the rest being some distance beyond. He 
tired, and at the crack of his rifle what was his horror and dismay 
to hear an Indian scream with agony. It was a dying shriek. The 
Indian was himself stalking deer, clothed in deer skin and carrying 
antlers. There was no more hunting for Steinman that trip. Fearful 
of revenge, he hurried iiome and kept exceedingly close for some 
time. Either, however, the Indians failed to learn the slayer's 
identity or were satisfied that the shooting was jnirely accidental, 
for no reprisal was ever attempted. 

Eciually, or rather more, serious and at the same time more 
amusing, was his next trouble. Steinman was an old bachelor and 
had peculiar habits. His house, which was within half a mile of the 
Indian raucheria, was of clapboards split and smoothed. Above his 
li\ing-room was a loft reached by a ladder. It was Steinman 's 
custom on warm afternoons to rejiair to this loft, divest himself 
of all clothing, and spend a few tranquil hours in smoking, meditation 
or repose. 

For some time he had been missing articles from his cabin with- 
out a clew to the pilferer or his method. On one afternoon, however, 
while taking his ease in the loft in a state of nature he heard noises, 
and looking down through the hole in the floor saw two Indians 
enter. They had discovered some loose weather l)oards, and by 
removing the nails had made an opening which later could be 
closed and leave no sign. 

The table, on which was a variety of eatables, was directly below 
the hole in the ceiling, and Steinman 's anger rose as he watched 
tlie Indians make free with his gi-ub and then examine the cabin for 
things of use. He determined to scare them into fits, and jumped 
to the table, giving as he did so a wild yell. Instead of fleeing in 
constci-nation at this frightful apparition, as he had anticipated, the 
Indians grabbed knives from the table and attacked him fiercely. 
Steinman, though severely wounded, managed to reach the fireplace, 
where he got hold of a long-handled shovel, with which he kiUed one 
of his antagonists and drove off the other. 

This time Steinman knew that only by immediate flight could 
he secure his safety. To his neighbor Willis he therefore went. A 
nuiiiber of men were here employed making rails and these promised 



90 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

him protection. After consultation it was deoided that the best 
method to pursue would be to endeavor to square the matter with 
the chief. 

All came to town and secured the s'ood offices of Horace Thomas, 
"Uncle Dan," to act as mediator. The result of the powwow was 
that in consideration of a beef, a horse and a number of trinkets 
it was agreed that there should be no harassment of Steinman. 

THE POIXDEXTER NUPTIALS 

John jjarker tells this story of W. L. Poindexter. sheriff of Tulare 
county in the late '50s. 

Poindexter was a 1)ig-, ,iolly, good-natured fellow, exceedingly 
popular, having hosts of friends not only in the county, but throughout 
the valley from Stockton to Bakersfield. A decided weakness for the 
fair sex was one of his characteristics and when a young lady school- 
teacher from San Jose, Miss Helen S , who was a most 

bewitching blonde, made her appearance in Visalia, Poindexter became 
deeply enamoured. U]ion her he lavished al)undant affection and pres- 
ents of a substantial nature. 

"When after a long but ardent courtship he finally secured her eon- 
sent and the day for the wedding was set, preparations on a grand scale 
went forward and from Stockton to Bakersfield friends were invited to 
attend. Barker says : 

"There was a jolly crowd and one of which any man might fee! 
justly proud to number as his friends on that occasion. The wedding 
was to take place Saturday and the bride and groom were to take 
passage for San Jose on the overland stage immediately thereafter. 
In the meantime, Poindexter had to make a tri]! to the Kern river 
mines. ' ' 

On his return Friday Barker brought his mail to him at his 
room. Of this he says: "I noticed a letter in a feminine hand that 
had been mailed him at Visalia. "When I handed hini his mail I felt 
a sort of premonition that all was not right. As lie read the letter 
I saw a change come over his features; he turned ]iale as death. 
I saw his hand quiver and thought he would faint. In a few 
moments, by a great effort, he called me and said, 'Jack, read this, 
liut never on your life breathe a word Of it to anyone else.' He 
added, 'That is from a woman that has ruined me financially and 
now she has completed the job.' " 

The letter was couched in cold blooded, deliberate language. 
It stated that she had made up her mind not to marry him, did not 
love him, never had and never could, advised him to get some one 
nearer his own age, etc., and suggested that bo make iio attempt to 
see her. 

"Poindexter told me that he had squandered $8,000 on her. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 91 

We tried to keep tliiugs secret that night, but by the next morning 
everyone in town knew it. Of course, there was a general feeling of 
indignation among Poindexter's friends, and liV noon a Saturnalia 
had commenced. Nearly all of the guests had bought new suits of 
clothes, good ones, to honor the occasion, and they organized what 
they called a 'Lodge of Sorrow.' After installing officers, com- 
mittees went around among the guests and invited them to meet at 
the lodge. As fast as they arrived they were put into an ante-room 
and as their names were called, they were blindfolded and led by 
the aim ))y a man on each side. The victim was marched around the 
room and then led to the center facing the presiding officer. His 
attention was directed to the awful example of our friend Poindexter, 
and he was then cautioned never to allow liimself to succumb to the 
wiles of a siren. He was tlien requested to repeat after one of his 
guides the following formula: 

' ' ' Then shall we stand such treatment ? No ! As soon seek roses in 
December, .ice in June, seek constancy in wind, or corn in chaff. 

" 'Believe a liar or an epitaph or any other thing that's false 
before 

" 'We let a woman play us such a score.' 

"At the command 'Restore him to the light' the bandage was 
removed from liis eyes, the skirts of his Prince Albert coat were 
seized on each side by his guides and the coat split up the back to 
the collar and the victim turned loose. Of course, his first impres- 
sion was that he wanted to punch the heads of the fellows who tore 
his coat, Imt when lie saw that everyone else in the room had been 
served the same way, his only alternative was to laugh with tliem 
and wait for the next victim. This Saturnalia was kept up until 
Sunday morning, when they all struck out for their homes." 

FIDDLING FROM DONKEY 's BACK. 

Many tales are told of the "devil may care" s]urit thai animated 
Visalia during the mining boom days. Gambling, boozing, fighting 
and frolicking were the occupations of the miners, especially, as hap- 
pened in the fall of '56 and '57, when their pockets were full of dust 
and tliey were off on their way to San Francisco to sjjcnd th(> winter. 

^'isalia offered such attractions that they got no further. At 
one lime a))Out twenty-tive of these took i)ractical ])ossession of the 
town. Wide ojjen and in full Itlast the attractions were kejit going, 
night and day. This crowd had among them a tall and lanky 
Missourian named -Ben Biggs, who could play the fiddle, and that liis 
talents might be exercised in a manner calculated to attract the most 
attention they ]mrchased a jackass for him to ride and were accus- 
tomed to march around the town, halting in front of the different 
saloons, treating all bystanders while the liddlcr ])layed lustily. The 
sum of $60 pel- uKintli was ]iaid the musician by the ]iarty. 



92 TUT.ARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Needless to say, (liu- celat was secured. .Judge Sayles, later of 
Fresno, who was tlie leader of this crowd, concluded that this sport 
had become somewliat stale and arran,s;ed t'oi- a glorious finale. 

At tlie crossing at Mill creek at Garden street was a ford, below 
which was a very deep pool. A halt was called here one day and 
Biggs, at the request of the audience, was sawing out a selection 
when a preconcerteil rush of the s))ectators duini)ed both him and his 
steed into the water. 

THE m'cEORY EI'ISODE 

Visalia in the '70s numbered among its inhabitants a genuine 
''bad man." This was one James McCrory, who at the time of his 
death had the rcpntatiou of having killed oi- wounded thirteen men. 

McCrory, when solter, was pleasant and companionable and 
gained many friends. When drunk, he was cross-grained and surly 
and inclined to shoot on little or no provocation. His first serious trou- 
ble occurred here in October, 1870, when without apparent cause he shot 
and killed Manuel Barcla, a Mexican liarkeeper in the Fashion 
saloon. For this nmrder he was at his first trial, sentenced to fifteen 
years imprisonment. On the second trial he was acquitted on 
technicalities. As the murder was peculiarly cold-blooded and brutal 
this caused nmch unfavoralile comment. 

The culminating incident of his career, however, and the means 
by wliicli he gained a large amount of such fame as lay within his 
reach, occurred on the night of December 24, 1872. MeCrory had 
just returned from a ])rospecting trip to Arizona. He had met with 
no success and arrived broke, actually in rags, in fact. Charles 
Allen, a barkeejier in the Eldorado saloon, had been his good friend 
for years and to him McCrory appealed for assistance. Allen re- 
plenished his wardrolie, inirchasing at Sweet's store a $10 pair of 
trousers and other articles of good quality. After nuiking the neces- 
sary imrchases, the two chums proceeded to carouse around together 
all day. Allen went to bed in the saloon, ))ut McCrory continued to 
celebrate. He became so boisterous that the Mexican barkeeper 
became frightened and woke Allen. AVhen Allen suggested that he 
make less noise, McCrory pulled his pistol and, without a word, shot 
Allen just below the eye. There were numerous witnesses to the 
dastardl\' act and feeling against McCrory was intense. Allen died 
in about an hour. 

McCrory made his escape througli the rear of the saloon and 
had hid himself in an outhouse, whence he was coaxed to come out 
by "Picayune" Johnson, a citizen, who placed him under arrest. 
When being taken to the jail by deiiuty sheriff Jesse Reynolds, there 
were hnid and frequent cries from the crowd of "hang him! hang 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 93 

Jiiin!" MeCrory yelled baek, "Yes, yoii , you dasseiit 

han.a,' me." 

It was Christmas eve. The church bells were rinftiuj>- their call 
to attend the Christmas trees festivities at the Methodist church on 
Court street, but there were few meu who answered this summons. 
They attended a graver and sterner meeting on Main street at p. 
m., and as a result marched en masse to the jail where sheriff A. U. 
Glasscock with armed deputies were found guarding the pinsoner. 
The sheriff asked the crowd not to act hastily and do things of which 
later they would be ashamed, and requested them to at least wait 
an hour before taking any action. This was agreed to and at the 
end of that time tlie>- returned with an eighteen foot piece of timber 
with which they broke o|)en the outside iron door of the jail. After 
reaching the hall they had to pass the sheriff's office where eight or 
ten armeil men were on guard. These were forced to give way and 
were sho\-ed into the office and held there. The keys were taken 
from Reynolds and the cell door opened. 

McCrory had heard them coming and, determined not to "die 
with his boots on," had removed them. When the leaders entered 
the cell they found him lying on his face. They caught him by the 
hair, raised his head up, placed a noose around his neck and half 
dragged, half carried him to the liall. A railing blocked the way 
here and in order to ])revent ])remature strangulation, he was lifted 
over this. Outside, he was taken to the Mill creek bridge on Court 
street, the rope tied to a post of the railing, and he was thrown over. 

A man made a motion that he l>e left there for one hour, which 
was duly seconded and carried. During the interim, a collection to 
defray funeral expenses was taken up, and arrangements made with 
the undertaker. At the end of the hour "Fatty Johnson," the under- 
taker, ap]ieared with a s])ring wagon. Six men pulled McCrory u]) 
and got him ])artially into the wagon. The incident was closed. 
Certainly there had been no delay or miscarriage of justice and not 
a cent of expense to the county. 

THE MOIUUS-SHANNON AFFEAY 

On November 15, 18G0, William Governeur Morris shot and killed 
.John Shannon, editor of the Delta. This affray grew out of the 
bitterness engendered in the political campaign which had just been 
bi-ouglit to a close, and for a correct understanding of the motives 
actuating the men, it is necessary to relate some of the verbal pass- 
ages between them. • 

The A'isalia Sun had been started during this campaign as an 
organ of the Ke|)ublican party, the Delta supporting ]*>reckenri(lge. 
Morris, it was stated, controlled the policy of the Sim and contributed 
to it editoi'iallv. 



94 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

lu the first issue of the Delta after the election there appeared 
a statement fi'om Shannon as follows: "To the Public: In the last 
issue of the Suu I find a card signed by William Governeur Morris, 
in wliich is the folIowiuK lauftnage: 'I have endeavored to obtain 
satisfaction from Mr. Shannon for liis personal abuse of me in his 
paper, but have been unable to do so.' " After this follow copies 
of a portion of the correspondence. "On the 15th of September 
last I received a note from Mr. Morris by the hands of two men, 
who immediately left without stating the object of their visit or the 
purjiort of the note of which they were the bearers, thus aifording 
me no opportunity to give them a written answer or to refer them 
to my friend. Eegarding this conduct on the part of these messengers 
as a deliberate insult, and finding one of them on the streets, 1 com- 
menced, without any ceremony, to chastise liim for his impertinence. 
(This was A. J. Atwell.) In so doing I injured my right hand, an 
injury which has since proved to be more serious than was at the 
time supposed. Mr. Morris was informed of the fact through Mr. 
Beckham, and requested to wait until such time as I could have the 
full use of my hand." Shannon goes on to state that Morris agreed 
to this and was to await an answer from Mr. Beckham, which had 
not been given because Shannon's hand was not yet well, and also 
that both Morris and Tate knew that he had also met with an accident 
to his other hand. He accuses them of violating the rules of the code 
and concludes by saying, "Inasmuch as Mr. Morris has chosen to 
retire from his position, I have only to say that hereafter, should 
he or any of his kind feel aggrieved by any act or word of mine, they 
have only to call upon me, with the assurance that I will be prepared 
to arrange matters with them very summarily, and without the inter- 
positions of friends or a resort to the code." 

November 15, 1860, a card appeared from Morris denouncing 
Shannon as a liar, coward and blackguard and stating that he would 
pay him no further attention. The affair occurred the same day. 
The version given by both the .S'»/; and the Delta was: 

"On Thursday evening Shannon entered the office of AV. P. 
Gill, Esq., where Morris was sitting. Shannon held in his hand a 
cocked ]nstol, and on entering raised the pistol, at the same time 
saying. 'Morris, are you armed?' Morris sprang to his feet and 
gTa])pled with his opponent. Shannon being the taller of the two 
Mori-is was unable to disarm him and Shannon beat him severely 
upon the head with the pistol, inflicting nine severe scalp wounds. At 
the first or second blow Shannon's pistol was discharged accidentally. 
After receiving these blows, Morris fell to the floor, covered with 
blood, whereupon Shannon gazed upon him several seconds and 
turned and left the room. Morris, thereupon, sjirang to his feet and. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES ^5 

drawing his revolver, rnslied out of the south door of the building 
so as to intercept Shannon before reaching his office. T!ie ])arties 
here exchanged shots ineffectually. Morris then left his position 
and proceeding to the north side of the building, climbed on the 
fence (Shannon retaining his position) and took deliberate aim 
and fired, the Itall striking Mr. Shannon in the abdomen. At this 
instant Shannon had raised his pistol, but lowered it without firing 
and put his hand to the wound and walked to his office, where he 
died in about an hour and eighteen minutes. 

Shannon was a man highly respected b}' a large circle of friends 
and sincerely mourned. He was one of the pioneer journalists of the 
state, having previously edited the Placer Democrat and the Calaveras 
CJuuiiicle. 

Morris later became United States marshal of California. 

STAPLEFOKD-DEPUTY AFFAIR 

One of the most bizarre and at the same time most outrageoiis 
crimes known in the annals of any county was committed in the sum- 
mer of 1858. The heavy villains were one J. D. Stapleford and 
William Governeur Morris, known as "bloody" Morris, the same 
gentleman who afterwards killed Shannon, the editor of the Delta, 
and later became United States marshal. 

It appears that Stai)leford, who hailed from Stockton, had there, 
in order to defraud his creditors, deeded his property, said to amount 
to $30,000 or $40,000, to his uncle, A\'illiam C. Deinity. Deputy had 
handled this property for some time, selling and reinvesting, and, as 
he claimed, repaying to Stapleford such sums from time to time 
as to cancel the indebtedness. Deputy, however, remained |)ossessed 
of nnich proi)erty and Stapleford demanded of his uncle that he deed 
all his i)roi)erty to him, claiming that the old score remained unsettled. 
Deputy refused and then Stapleford offered a reward of $1,000 to 
anyone who would compel him to sign an instrument to that effect. 

There being no takers for this offer, Stapleford caused De])uty's 
arrest on a charge of swindling, and he was confined in the old wooden 
jail and court house and chained to a ring-bolt, fastened in the floor. 
Apparently fearing that some attempt at the use of violence might 
be committed on the prisoner. Sheriff Poindexter ])laced two men, 
Ed Re\nolds and Frank "Warren, on guard to protect the old man. 

On the 28th of July, a mob headed by Morris, who was a lawyer 
and nofnry, broke into jail, took Deputy to the outskirts of towu, 
swung him u}) to a tree by a noose around his neck until he was 
nearly strangled, let him down, and then requested him to sign a 
deed that had been prepared. ITpon his refusal he was again swung 
U)) ;rii<l lashed by Morris with a blacksuake until almost miconscious. 
He then consented to sign, but after being taken back to jail, showed 



96 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

signs of renewed stubbornness. However, after being chained again 
to tlie riug-lK)lt and tlneateiied again witli tlie lash, lie did sign a 
deed by which lie transferred to Stapleford any and all real estate 
of which lie niiglit be i)ossessed in the state of California. 

This property included that on which the Visalia tiouriug mills 
are now situated, a tract east of town and a hotel and ranch propertj^ 
in San Bernardino. The pro])erty was immediately retransferred to a 
supposedlj' innocent third party and when De})uty brought suit to re- 
cover, the supreme court held that there was no law empowering it to 
reinstate Deputy in possession. 

Stapleford, Morris and four others of the princi]3al men com- 
posing the mob that had committed the outrage were later arrested 
on a com]ilaint signerl by many prominent citizens. Morris was 
convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of $500 and sei've six months 
in jail. Owing to secret influences of some kind, he successfully 
evaded doing either one, and escaped scot free. 

JAMES m'kIXXEv's HIGH LIFE 

On Simday morning, July 27, 1902, James McKinuey, an ex-con- 
vict, murderer and all round bad man, ran amuck in Porterville. 
shot five men, one fatally, held up a livery stable for a team and 
made his escape. 

McKinney at the time was employed at the Mint saloon as night 
manager. About midnight he and Rali)li Calderwood, known as 
"Scotty. " proprietor of a saloon and chop house, got together in 
the Mint saloon. Roth had been drinking and McKinney was bois- 
terous. He fired a shot from his revolver at random from the door 
of the Mint and then adjourned to Scotty's place where more 
promiscuous shooting was indulged in. 

City Marshal John Howell, his deinity. John "Willis, Dejtuty Con- 
stable AV. L. T()m])kiiis and a railroad emiiloye named Lyons ap- 
proached for the ]nirpose of arresting McKinney, who began shooting 
when the officers were within fifteen feet of him. They returned the 
fire and "Willis called, "Jim, stop your shooting." A shot was fired 
in reply. Attempting to fire again, the gun snapped and "Willis 
remarked, "Come on, boys, he has no more ammunition, we will get 
him now." McKinney fled, pursued by the officers. Willis, who was 
in the lead, fired two shots, one of which hit McKinney in the leg. 
"Willis, out of ammunition, continued the chase and got close enough 
to strike McKinney with his cane. McKinney had reloaded while 
running and upon being struck, turned and shot "Willis, the ball 
taking effect in the upper lip, knocking him down. 

The chase then ceased, but McKinney continued the flight to the 
house of his mistress, where he procured a sliotgun and rifle. Start- 
ing to return to town, he encountered "William Linn, a gambler, at 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES !)7 

whom witliout jirovopation lie diseliarsed a load of hiieksliot, fatally 
woiuidiug liim. Linii had ]iii'viously heen aceideiitally shot and 
slightly wounded in the exchange of shots with the officei's. McKiu- 
uey then went to the Arlington stahles, roused the hostlers, and, 
covering them with his rifle, demanded a team, threatening to kill 
them if they did not Imi-ry. While the team was iieing harnessed 
McKinney fired eight or ten shots towards the main part of town. 
He then got into the huggy and drove up through town, shooting at 
every person he saw. 

George Barrow, a compositor in the Enterprise office, received 
a charge in the right arm and in the small of the hack, and W. B. 
West was shot in the right arm and hij). West was slightly and 
Barrow very severely wounded. After shooting Barrow and West 
McKinney drove through the main part of town to the residence of 
D. B. Hosier, whom he roused. He said, "I have killed four or five 
men down town and must leave here. I want you to give me all the 
money you have. Take these keys and you will find in the locker at 
the safe at the Mint saloon, $100. Tell the Indian, referring to Ed 
Isham, to give you that money. Tell Ed that I have gone, that they 
will never take me. Tracy won't he in it with me, I will kill anyone 
that looks at me." 

Mosier gave McKinney all the money he had, about $60. Mc- 
Kinney drove again to Main street and took a parting shot at "Kid" 
Tatman, hut without effect. He drove north then from Porterville, 
passing through Lindsay, and in the vicinity of Lemon Cove secreted 
himself near D. McKee's home. 

Sheriff Parker was soon on the trail hut failed to locate him, 
as McKinney had numerous friends who assisted him in keeping his 
whereabouts a secret. In August, and until October, he was seen 
in the Randsburg district, whence he disappeared to parts unknown, 
not being heard of until June of 190;>, when he was reported in 
Mexico. Sheritf Collins secured extradition papers and went after 
him. McKinney, however, escaped and went to Kingman. Arizona, 
in which vicinity he murdered two men. Fleeing from the scene 
of these crimes he again appeared in the Randsburg region, l)eing 
hotly pursued by Sheriff Lovin of Mojave county, Arizona, as well 
as by Sheriff Collins and ex-Sheritf Overall of this county and 
sheriff's possees from Kern county. McKinney, evading these, made 
his way successfully through the Sierras to Kernville and there 
narrowly esca])ed being killed by Rankin and McCraeken, who recog- 
nized him and in a I'Uiming iiglil, wounded him. 

On A])ril 1!), IDO,"}, McKinney was located in a Chinese joss 
house in Rakei'sfield. The house was surrounded by a cordon of 
officers, and Jeff Packard, city marshal, and Will E. Tibbett, si)ecial 
deputy sheriff, were killed in an attempt to enter it. McKinney ap- 



1)8 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

peared at the doorway and was shot and instantly killed by deputy 
sheriff Bert M. Tibhetts. 

THE MAGANA BUTCHEEY 

The last of the long list of bloody crimes that has cursed the 
county that will be noted was that committed in Porterville, February 
17, 1911. On that day, just before dark and as the stores were closing 
for the night, Juan Magana, a Mexican laborer who had been at work 
in the county, entered the Lambkin-Graham clothing store. It hap- 
]Dened that J. B. Lambkin was still in the store and Magana asked to 
look at some shoes. While Lambkin was looking for the shoes the 
Mexican demanded money and on being refused, drew a butcher knife 
and stabbed the merchant to death. 

Soine one entered the store just then and gave the alarm. Ma- 
gana broke through a rear window and escaped in the darkness. In 
the tussle in the store he had cut his own hand and he left a trail of 
blood. He escaped to a small settlement of Mexicans near the out- 
skirts of town, and there gave away the knife, but escaped. Early 
the following morning the officers followed the trail to the Mexican 
camp, but there lost it and diiring the forenoon were beating the 
surrounding country for the criminal. He was soon found by Orral 
Kilroy of Porterville and turned over to the town marshal, E. B. 
Isham. 

Sheritf Collins had gone over in an automobile and innnediately 
took the marshal and the prisoner into the machine and started for 
Visalia. The people were greatly incensed over the crime, and a 
move was started to wrest the fellow from the officers and execute 
him on the spot. The driver of the machine speeded through the 
streets of Porterville at a sixty-mile clip, and distanced all pursuers. 
When a few miles from town there was a long bridge to be crossed. 
The driver kept uji speed, and striking some obstruction, one of the 
axles broke and the machine careened to one side and toppled off 
the bridge to the dry bed of the creek below. The parties in the 
machine jumped out before it landed and thus escaped any injury 
more than a severe jolting. The gasoline exploded and the machine 
was burned. The officers, with their prisoner, walked to a nearby 
house, telephoned for a new machine and tinally arrived, late in the 
afternoon, at the jail at Visalia. 

Magana made a full confession, was found guilty, and on June 
IG. expiated his crime in San Quentin. His is the only case in the 
history of the county when an execution was effected on the day 
first set by a judge. 

MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS 

The Delta January 6, 1861, speaks of a sale of Visalia building 
lots held on the day previous by J. E. Wainwright & Co. The sale 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 99 

was largely atteuded aud tlu; bidding spirited. One luuulreil aud 
fifteen lots were sold at prices ranging from $5 to $30. The lots were 
in Aughinbaugb's Addition to Visalia. 

As late as 1891, lands near Visalia were by no means held at high 
prices. J. H. Thomas advertised forty acres three-qnarters of a 
mile sonth of town for $60 per acre. The same year, Sontag & 
Evans, who afterwards became famous criminals, advertised thirteen 
lots, aud half a block in Aughinbaugh's Addition to Visalia, orchard 
and vineyard on the land, for $1,600. 

As a showing of the importance of sheep-raising in Tulare in 
early days it is noted that the fall clip of wool of 1872 was 1,474,500 
pounds. The winter following was the most severe one ever ex- 
perienced by sheepmen and yet the s^Dring clip of 1873 was 947,375 
pounds. 

J. P. Majors of Visalia was the first postmaster in Tulare 
county, being appointed in 1855 and serving three years. He was 
succeeded by Zane Steuben. 

In 1891 the lumber business was very active. Atwell's mills on 
the Mineral King road was operated by the Kaweah colonists; four 
saw mills were located on the Upper Yolo, two of which were run- 
ning; the Comstock mills, above Camp Badger; the Sequoia mills, 
jiist across the line in Fresno county. The total cut of these mills 
that year was over three million feet of lumber. 

CROSSING STREAMS IN THE FIFTIES 

The business of maintaining ferries across different streams in 
the county appears to have been a profitable one in early days, judg- 
ing from the number engaged in it. 

At one of the first meetings of the board of supervisors in 1853, 
A. B. Gordon was granted the privilege of maintaining a ferry across 
Kern river, free of taxation for a period of eight months. The fol- 
lowing rates were authorized : six-horse team or four yoke of oxen, 
$6; four-horse wagon, $4; two-horse wagon, $2; horse and man, $1; 
pack mules, fifty cents; loose horses and foot men, twenty-five cents 
each. 

In 1855 the court of sessions granted licenses to L. A. Whitman 
to conduct a ferry on Kings river, at a point two and one-half miles 
west of Crumley's ranch, and to I. S. George to run a ferry boat at 
the Poindexter crossing; granted to John Pool the right to continue 
his ferry and gave to Crumley and Smith the privilege of conducting 
another. 

COUNTY SCRIP AND GOLD DUST 

In August, 1855, at a meeting of the board of supervisors, it 
was "ordered that the treasurer pay to S. C. Brown the balance still 



100 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

(hie on oriler tliirteen county sfi'lp, valuinir gold dust at $14 per 
ounce. ' ' 

AX IXniAX RUNNEK 

"Captain George, an Indian and a 'big Injun liea])' at tliat, lias 
commenced running as an expressman between this ]ilace and Coso. 
For his services he gets very well paid and would be better paid 
had he a tench of Yankee in his system, lie makes the tri]) now in 
about four days and packages of light weight of any description may 
be safely entrusted to iiis care." — Delta, 1861. 

In September, 1862, Mr. '\"an Water is credited with having a 
factory in operation in Visalia. making a tine article of sorghum 
syrup. 

In 1863 Nathan Baker put in a tield of about twelve acres, near 
Visalia, to tobacco. 

*'Si)lendid deer skins, dressed, were offered for sale in this ]ilace 
yesterday morning at $19 a dozen." — Delta, Oct. 20, 1861. 

"Boating — People who have not been here for a year or two 
will be surprised to hear that navigation is now open just north of 
town. The tirst boat arrived near S. Davenport's, on Saturday last, 
with four tons of freight on board. Since that some thirty tons have 
arrived by the same means, and regular trips will be made until the 
water subsides. "^Z>c//rt, May 15, 1867. 

"Two hunters, living in the foothills on the waters of the Tule 
river, have killed over one hundred and twenty deer during the 
present winter."— Dc//rt, 1866. 

VISALIA 's FIRST BUSINESS DIRECTORY 

The business directory of Visalia in 1861 was as follows: Saloons: 
Cosmopolitan, Gem, Fashion, St. Charles. Wholesale and retail dealers : 
II. Cohn, H. Green.- Hotels: Exchange, corner Court and Main streets; 
\'isalia House, corner Main and Church streets. General merchandise, 
etc., Sam Ellis, D. E. Douglass, Reinstein & Hockett, Sweet & Jacobs, 
"Weinshauk & Sinclair, M. Reinstein. Stage lines: Hice & Wilson. Mis- 
cellaneous: Bossier & Townsend, saddlers and harness makers; Knoble 
& Kraft, bakers and confectioners; G. AY. Rogers, jeweler; B. M. Bron- 
son, gunsmith; John H. Richardson, painter; Douglass & Magary, 
contractors and builders; Samuel Dinely, barber shop and bathhouse; 
Jose]ih H. Thomas, lumber yard; George AV. Sutherland, tailor slioj); 
Justices of the Peace: S. AY. Beckham, Robert C. Redd. Attornevs: AA". 
M. Stafford, A. J. Atwell, Morris & Brown. S. A. Sheppard. Phvsi- 
cians: Dr. M. Baker, Dr. J. D. P. Thomason. Dr. AV. A. Russell. Dr. 
James A. Roberts, Dr. T. O. Ehis, Sr. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 101 

SECOND COUKTHOUSE 

Tulare county's second courthouse, built in 1859, was a brick struc- 
ture -10x60 feet in size, of two stories and a basement. In the base- 
ment was a jail, one half l)ein.o' divided into six cells, lined with lioilei' 
iron. In ISJ'A an additional jail as a separate building was consti'ucted. 

As to the building of the ])resent court house without the wings 
(which were added in 190()), there hangs a tale. The Southern Pacific 
had completed its line through the county in 187:2, leaving Visalia side- 
tracked and therefore destined to become a "deserted village." At the 
site of Tulare, the railroad luxd ])latted a town in which plat provision 
was made for a court liouse. and the general expectation, both among 
bu.vers of town lots in Tulare and citizens generally was that Tulare 
would become the county seat. But the legislature of 1875-1876 passed 
an act authorizing the county of Tulai'e to issue bonds in the sum of 
$75,000 for the pur))0se of building a court house in \'isalia. This 
naturally aroused intense opposition, not only from Tulare and the 
southern end of the county, Init even from Visalia. The Delta de- 
nounced it as a job, stating tliat the then existing court house was good 
enough and that the building of another would be burdensome on the 
taxpayers. 

A "People's Convention" was called to meet in Visalia, July 15, 
1876, to take action in the matter. Resolutions were passed denouncing 
the methods used in the passage of the bill through the legislature, etc., 
and agreeing to use every legal means to prevent its o])eration. How- 
ever, the citizens of Visalia regarded it as vital to their welfare, if not 
to the very salvation of the town; the majority of the board of super- 
visors were favorable to Visalia and pushed the matter forward as 
rapidly as i)Ossil)le, issuing ))ouds, advertising for bids for the sale of 
the old structure and the construction of the new, etc. 

A. D. Glasscock ])ouglit the old courthouse for .$686, and R. E. Hyde 
the jail for $J05. Stephens and Childers of Santa Rosa were awarded 
the contract for construction for $59,700, and on October 28, 1871, 
under the auspices of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons 
of California, the cornerstone was laid. 

CEMETERIES 

Tulare county's first cemetery was started in Visalia in 1857, near 
where the Tipton Lindsey schoolhouse is now situated. The first occu- 
l)ant was a Dutchman who was drowned in Mill creek and whose only 
known name was Pete. On the rough i)ine box containing the remains 
was therefore duly inscribed "Pete in the box," the same inscription 
being placed on the headboard. 

Ajuong others whose l)odies were laid to rest here and later i-e- 
moved to the new cemetery were Jack Lorenz, Mrs. Thomas P>akei', 
Mrs. Nathan Raker, and a man called Salty. 

7 



102 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 



VISALIA S TITLE 

There was for many years a elond upon the title to lots in Yisalia 
and at one time there was serious trouble feared. It appears that after 
Nat. "\'ise gave u]^ his preemption in favor of tlie on-coming city, noth- 
ing was done to comply with legal forms necessary to perfect a title. 

On August 9, 1857, the board of supervisors passed an order asking 
congress to grant the board the right to preem):)t the town site of 
Yisalia. and the clerk was ordered to file in the land office, then located 
in Sau Francisco, the necessary application. The application was not 
received, the land office claiming that there was no evidence that the 
supervisors were the agents of Tulare county. The matter was drop- 
ped till about 1867. The Alsalia Land District had been formed and 
one George Garish appointed receiver. Discovering the lack of title 
to the townsite, he made application for the lands. This aroused the 
people and steps were taken to iierfeet the title to the county for the 
lands. The matter had to be taken before the land commissioner at 
Washington, but it was finally settled to the benefit of the people. 

BEFORE VISALIA BEAUTIFUL CAME 

In the spring of 1860 a correspondent to the local pajser speaks 
thus of Visalia: "This region, including the town, is little more than 
a labyrinth of crooked creeks, ditches, fences, brush, weeds, etc. A 
quarter of a mile out of town one is in the wilderness to all intents and 
pur])Oses. Streets are straight and square as far as they go. but they 
don't go, and it takes a very uncommon owl to get to his regular roost 
in the burg after dark. Wonder what the 'Beau Brummel' of the 
Mariposa Gazette, who was here about two weeks ago, thinks about it, 
inquiring the way to Visalia at a house about a hundred yards from 
the Court street bridge." 

IN THE FIFTIES 

Jime 25, 1859 — "We hope to be able soon to give the latest tele- 
graphic news received at St. Louis, by the stages as thev pass through 
iov^n."~Delta. 

"A protest against the contemplated reduction of the overland 
mail service is now in circulation. * * * xhis is the only direct 
and speedy (sic) connection we have with the east and its promptness 
and regularity have made it an enterprise of the utmost importance to 
the people of California." — Delta, 1859. 

SOME AD^^CE COUPLED WITH A PREDICTION 

"I would advise the merchants and citizens of Visalia and Tulare 
county to encourage as much as possible men to go into the mountains 
east of this valley and prospect there thoroughly, as nothing Init the 
discovery of mines close to us that we can supply without fear of com- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 103 

petition will save ns from inevitable Bahylonic rnin that will change 
most of our fine buildings into nothing Imt a shelter for a lot of lousy 
Indians in a few years." — (Newspaper correspondent in 1859.) 

POLITICS 

The following apjieared in the Delta in 1859. 

"We can safely pledge the county of Tulare to give seventy- tive 
Democratic votes to one Rejiublican or mixed. * * * In Fresno 
county there was never but one al)olitionist and he has now left for a 
more congenial clime. His portrait is to be seen at the Millerton 
hotel. Mr. McCray has had the portrait framed at a heavy expense 
that the passerby may look upon the Lone Republican of B"'resno. 
Whence he came or whitlier he went no one knoweth." 

THE BUSY BEE 

June 21, 1859. — "J. B. Stevens arrived in Visalia with ten hives 
of bees, the first ever brought to the county. 

J. H. and C. G. Hart had an apiary east of Visalia in 1860, and 
inserted the following advertisement in the Delta: 'Bee Advertisement 
— For sale on and after the tirst of September next a choice lot of 
honey bees in as good condition as any the county affords. Price $50 
a swarm. A farm or grain will be taken as pay where it suits pur- 
chasers better than to pay money.' " 

ARRIVAL OF THE TELEGRAPH 

On June 18, 1860, the Atlantic and Pacific telegraph line entered 
Visalia and the occasion was celebrated in a fitting manner. Abe Rape- 
ly, agent of the Overland mail company, took the matter in charge. 
A procession consisting of e\'ery horse and vehicle in town, with all 
spare stage coaches, decorated with flags and bunting, set out to meet 
the linemen. A large banner on which was painted a representation of 
the earth surrounded by a chain of telegraph wires with the motto "I'll 
]iut a girdle round al)0ut the earth in forty minutes," was carried by 
T. y. Crane who made the address of welcome and escorted back into 
town the superintendent, James Street. 

ELECTIONS HELD IN SALOONS 

"Pursuant to notice a primary election was held in the Visalia 
]irecinct at the new saloon of A. O. Thoms, on Saturday last, and the 
following gentlemen chosen as delegates to attend the Union county 
convention of Saturday, August 2nd : Stephen Davenport, Henry 
Hartley, W. M. Johnson, G. A. Botsford, John Cutler, Hi Morrell, 
T. H. Thomas, S. Cady, T. Lindsey, William linker, S. G. George, 
Lytle Owen, John GiW— Delta, Julv, 1862. 



104 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 



A VIGOROUS PROTEST 

Dr. Wt4ib, tlie ocrentrie iiidividnal wlio ol)tainecl a deed to the 
np])er story of a building erected in Visalia, as related elsewhere, later 
became county jihysician and manager of the county hospital at a sal- 
ary of $500 }ier year. In 1871 the supervisors ousted Webb from liis 
l^osition and gave to his successor a salary of- $2000 per year. The 
following card appeared in the Times of November 11, 1871, which 
seems to indicate that the reverend doctor was somewhat peeved: 

"Rev. James A. Webb to the perjured sui)ervisors of Tulare 
county, California. 

"Perjured villains, rebel devils and fools; 

"Wliile unscruinilous and perjured rebel devils hold political sway 
in our demented rebel county no honest man or christian can expect 
any favors from their nefarious hands. 

"I would be glad to keep the county hospital for $500 a year, 
but because I am a Union man. and not a perjured rebel devil, you 
will rob me of my only means of support and give my hospital to 
rebel traitors of your own kind for four times the price for which I 
offer to keep it. 

"Therefore, I, the only true physician in Tulare county, Cali- 
fornia, and the only true Gospel minister in Tulare county, and the 
only Bible jioet in Tulare county, and the only Advent pro]ihet in 
Tulare county and tlie only Christian ])atriarch in Tulare; Therefore, 
in the name and service of the Great Jehovah, I offer my services to 
God and him only to continue my fifty years Bible task. 

"Where is your oath of office, Oh! ye perjured Democratic 
demons? Where is your conscience, you ungodly devils! Have you 
any reason why I should not damn you all together?" And follows 
more, signed "Alonzo, the Advent Prophet, Bible Poet and Christian 
Patriarch." 

A NOVEL ENGINE 

A correspondent, writing alwut Visalia in the '90s, thus s]ieaks 
of the engine that hauled the passengers from Visalia to Goshen: 
"The engine doing service on the Visalia railroad is one of the most 
novel arrangements we recollect to have seen in railroading. It has 
engine, tender and car all aggregated together, will carry ten or fif- 
teen passengers and baggage, and can doubtless be run at half the 
cost of an ordinary stage coach. We place no high estimate on its 
speed, but the engineer tells us that it has the power to move any 
train likely to be loaded at any point in the valley." 

THE FLOOD TIMES 

There are a great many people who never li\ed in Tulare county 
that have a fixed idea that this is a waterless county, where the 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 105 

unfortunate denizens are ever parched with thirst. But there have 
been many years when there was more water than was necessary for 
drinking purposes. 

That abused individual, tlie "oldest inhabitant," tells of wonder- 
ful times back in the early '50s. But the flood of 1867 is one in the 
memories of a great many people, and was surely bad enough. In the 
winter of that year all the streams in the county were on a rampage. 
Tnle river si)read all over the Poplar and Woodville sections. Deer 
creek and the White ri\er merged their waters in their lower course, 
and the Kaweah and St. Johns made a vast expanse of waters. Boats 
bearing su]iplies iiassed freel.N' from Visalia to places in Kings and 
Fresno counties. The herds of cattle and sheep looked sad. Many 
hair breadth adventures are recorded and there was great loss of 
property. 

An account of the experiences at two farm houses will serve to 
indicate ]irevailing conditions during this flood. Eastward from Vi- 
salia. near where Packwood creek crosses the Mineral King road, 
there resided but three families, tho.se of A. H. Broder, Ira Van 
Gordon and W. H. Mills. Broder suggested that all get together at 
his i)lace, that being situated on higher ground. This was done and 
the men in-oceeded to build an emliankment about three feet high, 
enclosing about half an acre of ground. The siding from the barn 
was ren'ioved and a raft built, their labors extending into the night. 
The women, likewise, were busily employed preparing supplies, cook- 
ing beans, etc. The i)lan was to move to a still higher sand knoll 
which lay to the south and west. By nine o'clock the following morn- 
ing, Broder, who had been keeping tal) on the water level by means 
of sticks, reported that it had receded half an inch and that it would 
not be necessary to move. 

About two hundred Indians took refuge on the same high mound, 
and made a gala festival of the predicament. Sfjuirrels and rabbits 
in great numbers were caught and hung on lines to dry, the flood 
affording both amusement and provender. 

At the residence of the Evans family, near Visalia, which was 
also located on high ground, there were exciting times this night. 
The water, after a previous raise, came suddenly, surrounding their 
house and almost enguiting some of their neighbors' homes. The 
Prothero family lived on the Bentley place and there the water ran 
through the windows. Mr. and Mrs. Prothero with three chihlrcn 
were assisted to move to the Evans house and then came a call for 
help from the home of Mrs. Williams, who lived adjoining. This was 
about one o'clock in the morning, |)itch dark and the swirling waters 
icy cold. Mrs. Williams had a baby but four or five days old and 
was unable to walk. Samuel and James Evans waded over, and plac- 
ing her in a rocking chair, carried her to safety. Tom Robinson, 



106 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

with his wife aud family, also took refuge witli the Evanses, making a 
total of twenty-five gathered there. The barn, several hundred yards 
away, half full of hay, provided the only place for sleeping quarters 
for so many people. Between it and the house the water ran two or 
three feet deep. Luckily, a boat had previously been constructed in 
which to go to Visalia, aud so the half-dried refugees cuddled around 
the stove in the I] vans 's kitchen were enabled to get to bed without 
again getting wet. Jim Evans, acting as gondolier, conducted his 
guests to their hay mow lodgings. 

HARVESTING WHEAT 

In the days of the early '50s harvesting grain was anytliing but 
a rapid process. No reapers or combined harvester then. The labor 
of cutting was done mostly by Indians, with old-fashioned reap hooks. 
The grain was drawn to the threshing yard by rawhides, and the 
threshing done l)y tramping the straw with horses in the same old 
style that was in vogue in the days of Noah. 

THE LOST MINE 

Tulare county, like many other sections of the state, has had its 
Lost Mine legend. This particular one has had many variations in 
the narrative, and many were the people who gave time and means 
in searching for the lost mine. One of the legends was that a party 
of Spaniards had a mine somewhere in the mountains in the head- 
waters of the Kaweah river, that the mine was immensely rich, and 
that going out to Souora with a pack train all the miners were killed 
and the packs were all of gold. The Indians claimed to know of the 
location of the mine, and several expeditions were made to find it 
but with the usual success. Floods had washed away landmarks, or 
something was wrong, so the Indians never quite found the right 
sjaot. 

Andrew llarrell, familiarly known as "Barley" Harrell, did not 
owe his nickname to the great acreages of the cereal that he was 
accustomed to plant, but to the fact that in his courting days when 
visiting his sweetheart he told his parents that he had been to see 
Mr. Bacon about that barley. The excuse served well for one visit, 
but the use of it a second time caused much laughter aud he was 
ever after designated "Barley." 

SOME STATISTICS OF 1870 

W. J. Ellis, county assessor of Tulare county in 1870, submitted, 
as was the custom in those days, a statistical report to the state 
surveyor-general showing the number of live stock of different kinds, 
areas devoted to different cultures, quantity of different productions, 
etc. On account of the small cultivated area in those days, and on ac- 
count of the conscientious care Mr. Ellis brought to the task, a degree 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 107 

of iK-euracy was obtained greatly in excess of present day statistics. 

For example, there were one hundred and eight orange trees in 
the county, one liundred of which were in a nursery. Today there 
are in the neighl)orhood of 2,700,000. The area devoted to wheat 
was 2500 acres. In the '80s, when the production of this cereal 
reached its height, scores of ranches each contained a greater acreage 
than this. 

The butter i)roduction was 8,150 pounds; today over four mil- 
lion. 

While cattle raising was one of the great industries of that time, 
we find Ijut 28,604 head of stock cattle, a number almost equaled now 
by dairy cows. 

Of sheep, now almost extinct within this county, there were 158,- 
631, and the annual production of wool was given as 872,670 j^ounds. 
This, l)y the way, was more than doubled in the next four succeeding 
years. 

In all, there were but 30,000 acres of enclosed land. 20.000 of 
which was cultivated. 

In a letter to the surveyor-general accompanying this report, Mr. 
Ellis qualified as a ])rophet by using the following language: "Stock 
raising has ever lieen and is yet the leading interest in Tulare county, 
but a change is taking place. We have to look but a short distance 
ahead to see the plains of Tulare county covered with beautiful 
farms, nice farm houses, waving fields of grain. The locomotive's 
whistle will then be heard." 

MANKINS' PARTY ARRIVAL 

The following is quoted from the description of the entry of a 
party of pioneers into Visalia in 1854, written by one of them — J. H. 
Mankins : 

"Late in April, 185-t, had one been standing on Main street, Vi- 
salia, he would have witnessed the entry of a unique cavalcade. There 
were ten riders tra\-eling in single file — your humble servant one of 
them. 

"That broad-shouldered man, weighing above two hundred and 
twenty pounds is 'dad.' lie is always in the lead and is dressed 
tliioughout in smoked buckskin with fringes up the legs, and a hunt- 
ing shirt, also fringed roundabout. Add to the costimie a very high 
plug hat, imagine him tlien with a mop of raven black hair falling 
ovci- his shoulders, with coal black, piercing eyes, seated on a large 
(l;i|)i)le gray horse. A hunting knife is at his girdle, a six-shooter on 
either side of the saddlehorn and he carries a 'sharp-shooter' rifle in 
front. Such was J. B. Mankins, forty-niner and pioneer of pioneers. 

"After Dad came next two boys, nearing numhood, one girl 
of eleven, a young Indian .boy, two Jews and then three boys aged 



108 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

fourteen, eight ami six. We were all, exeept the Jews, dressed 
wholly ill buckskin, well fringed. For hats we wore bearskin caps. 

"We pitched ouj- camp just across Mill creek, north of Visalia. 
The tules then came very close to town and the mosquitoes were 
very numerous. The town consisted of one store, kei)t liy John 
Peraberton, a blacksmith shop and a tavern. O. K. Sinitii was 
sheriff and ,Jud.i>e Tjouis Van Tassell, under sheriff. 

"I reineiuber quite well Mrs. John Keener, Sr. She had gotten 
sight of us and perceived that we were sadly in need of repairs, 
for you see, we were half-orphans. So she had Dad get some 
cloth, and she made us up some clothes, for it liecame necessary for 
us to conform to the usages of civilization." 

In IS.-j!), llic following time schedule was ])ublished: Overland 
stage from San Francisco to St. Louis arrives Sunday and Wednes- 
day mornings, de]3arts on arrival. From Stockton to Visalia. arri\es 
Tuesday and Friday nights, departs Monday and Thursday mornings. 
From Visalia to Los Angeles, via Kingsbury, Petersburg and Keyes- 
ville, arrives eiglitli and twenty-fifth of month and departs first and 
fifteenth. Tri-weekly to Honitos— 120 miles, made one day, return 
next. Tri-weekly to Linns valley. 

In July, 1867, Messrs. Thorne and Davenport established a 
saddle and i)ack train over the Hockett trail to Lone Pine and Inde- 
pendence. 

In July, 1864, Messrs. Bellows, Lown and Badger, of Owens 
river, started a regular cargo train over the new trail from Visalia 
to Owens river. 

We are informed that the services at the camj) ground near 
town were disturbed on Sunday by some unregenerate heathen who 
persisted in singing John Brown, The Star Spangled Banner, Hail 
Columbia, and other airs, which were decidedly offensive to the 
majority of those present. This is very wrong." — Delta, Sept. 3, 
1862. 

"Wild mustangs seem to be quite ])lenty in our vicinity. A 
com])any of young men went out on the plains near the head of Cross 
creek on Saturday last and succeeded in securing sixteen of the 
quadrupeds." — Delta, June 12, 1862. 

NO FENCE LAW 

It is ]irobal)l(' that no measure ever jiassed by the legislature 
of California had more beneficial effect on the agricultural interests 
of the state than the "no fence" law enacted in 1874. 

This law required cattle owners to ])revent their stock from 
trespassing on the land of others when same was in use. In Tulare 
county the agitation in favor of the passage of such a law was in- 
augurated by Stephen Barton, editor of the Delta, in 1870. As 



TULARE AND KIx\GS COUNTIES 109 

stock raisin,i>' was the ])rin('ii)al iiidiistry Iiere at tliat time, and there 
were many men lieavily interested in it whose revennes wonld be 
injnriously atTected, tlie proposed measure was bitterly opposed. 
The election of 1878 for senator from the district comin-ised of 
Fresno, Kern and Tulare counties turned u])on the (piestion of 
"fence" or "no fence," Thomas Fowler, on the Democratic ticket, 
ojiposing the law, and Ti])ton Lindsey, running' as Independent, 
favorii}<>- it. 

The Times o])posed the law on the ground that no time was 
allowed the stockmen in which to make such changes in their methods 
as to permit them to sustain a mininuuii of loss. 

The Delta pointed out the rapid development of farming which 
would ensue and the eminent justice of the measure. 

The issue was presented in stirring S]ieeches to the voters of 
almost every precinct by the opposing candidates, the result in this 
county l)eing a majority of votes for Fowler. Lindsey was, how- 
ever, elected, as was a "no fence" assemblyman, and the enactment 
into law followed at the ne.xt session of the legislature. 

AS SKEN BY FREMONT 

Fremont, when homeward bound, in 1844, passed through the 
San Joa(|uin valley and Tulare county. He speaks frequently of the 
numerous bands of wild horses encountered enroute. Elk were 
frequently started near the San Joaquin river, and wolves were seen 
chasing the young antelope. 

On April 8th, the River of the Lake, elsewhere denominated the 
Rio de los Reyes, or Kings river, was reached. Here the Indians 
brought in otter skins to trade. His ford is located at latitude 36- 
24-50, longitude 119-41-40. Of the trip from Kings river to the 
southern end of what is now Tulare county, Fremont says : 

"Ajnil Otli. — For several miles we had very bad traveling over 
what is called I'otten ground, in which the horses were frequently 
up to their knees. ^Making towai'd a line of timber, we found a 
small, fordable stream (Cottonwood creek), beyond which the coun- 
try inqiroved and the grass became e.xcellent. * * * "We traveled 
until late through o))en oak groves, and encam))ed among a collection 
of streams." Was this near the Kaweali and Canoe creek and Deep 
creek ? 

."Api'il loth. — Today we made another long journey of about 
forty miles, thi-ougli a country uninteresting and fiat, with very little 
grass and a sandy soil, in which sex'ei'al branches we crossed had lost 
their wate)'. In the evening the face of the country became hilly, 
and, turning a few jniles up towards the mountains, we found a 
good encanq)nient on a pretty si ream bidden among the hills, and 
handsomely timbei'ed, principally with large cottonwoods." 

"April lltli. — A broad trail along the liver here takes us out 



110 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

among: the hills. Bueu camino (good road) said one of the Indians, 
of whom we had inquired about tlie pass, and following it accord- 
ingly, it conducted us beautifully through a very broken country. 
* * * The country had now assumed a character of aridity, and 
the luxuriant green of the little streams wooded with willow, 
oak, or sycamore, looked very refreshing among the sandy hills." 



CHAPTER X 
THE MUSSEL SLOUGH WAR 

J. J. Doyle, one of the oldest settlers of the Mussel Slough 
country, in whose charge the settlers later placed all actions under- 
taken to protect their rights, gives this version of the controversy 
in which he took a prominent part. 

"In 1870 I was living on the west side of the San Joaquin river. 
In the Rural Press 1 saw a letter written by W. S. Chatman, a 
land lawyer of San Francisco who claimed a section of land near me 
which was also claimed by the railroad company as being included 
in their ten mile float. 

"In this letter Chatman stated that as a lawyer he had inves- 
tigated the matter and found that the railroad had no right to an 
acre of this land for he reason that it was a state corporation and 
was to receive similar lands granted to the Atlantic & Pacific rail- 
road company. Their charter provided that they should build a road 
from the bay of San Francisco running through the counties of Santa 
Clara, Monterey, San Luis Obispo, Tulare, Los Angeles and San 
Diego, to the town of San Diego and thence east to the state line. 

"Chatman showed in his letter that according to the Grant 
act they were to file a map of the proposed route, which they had 
not done. 

"L'pon investigation I found that there were three hundred and 
fifty-four Spanish land grants between San Francisco and San Diego. 
Of course they would get none of this land. I also found that the 
west ten miles of lieu lands was nearly all in the Pacific ocean. Tliey 
knew, however, of the great San Joaquin valley, in which the Laguna 
de Tache was the only land grant, and therefore had changed their 
route near Tres Pinos so as to enter the center of the San Joaquin 
vallev and go over the Tehachapi pass, as the road now runs. 

"I came into the Mussel Slough countrv in 1871 and myself and 
brother located on lands bordering the Mussel Slough. As I be- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 111 

lieved from Cliatmau's letter aud from my own iuvestisations that 
the railroad had no ri,a,lit to a title to these lands, I petitioned Con- 
gress in the fall of 1874, but gettin.a; no immediate relief, I offered a 
filing in the Visalia land office. This was rejected and I appealed 
my case with thirty others to the Department of the Interior. All 
told, I appealed nearly all of three hundred cases from the Visalia 
land office. "We were l)eaten in these and I then took a case through 
the state courts, the United States courts and to the supreme court. 
Twelve separate decisions were rendered, no two of whicli ;\greed. 

"After this, for the purjiose of acting nnitedly in our fight with 
the railroad, we settlers organized the Land League, which at one 
time attained a membership of six hundred. In 1875 I was sent to 
Washington, where I remained six months. I got a bill on the 
calendar, but through manipulation it was defeated. In 1879 I went 
to Washington again, but accomplished nothing. A decision against 
ns had been handed down by the Federal courts and the railroad was 
eager to dispossess us, but as we were so strong and well organized, 
they hesitated to do so. 

"I sent a resolution to Sacramento to Governor Stanford, who 
was then president of the road, and at his request we appointed a 
committee composed of Major McQuiddy, J. M. Patterson, and 
myself. We called on the governor and persuaded him to visit our 
country, which lie did in Ajiril, 1880. We started then a negotiation 
for a settlement of the matter with Governor Stanford, and had been 
engaged for about a month in a discussion of an equitable arrange- 
ment when suddenly, without a warning and without our knowledge, 
the United States marshal apjieared, coming for the avowed jmrpose 
of dispossessing some of our men. We were that day to have a big 
meeting at Hanford to listen to Judge Terry give an exposition of 
our rights in the premises. 

"The marshal was accom]:)anied by men named Hart, Clark and 
Crow, who were all loaded down with arms. The marshal, i)rior 
to serving any papers, desired to confer with ns, which was granted. 
In the meantime, a number of our men, more through curiosity 
than anything else, went over to the wagon where Crow and Hart 
were. Of these only two, viz., Harris and Henderson, were armed. 

"All at once during the conference shooting commenced witliout 
any sj^ecial ])rovocation and Harris was killed. According to the 
evidence it a])peared that he and Hart had fired almost at the same 
time. Harris hit Hart in the groin and he died within four days. 
Then Crow shot Harris with a numl)er ten shotgun loaded with twelve 
bullets. He hit him right in the breast. Then he shot Knutson, who 
was on horseback, shot him with twelve bullets and tlien turned his 
gim on Dan Kelly, whose horse, just as Crow lir-ed, had become 
unrnlv and whirled around so tliat the charge entered Kellv's side 



Ill' TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

and practically blew it ofif. Crow was out of the wa.aon at this time, 
the team having ])revioiisly run away as Hart was attempting to get 
out. Crow and Hart and Clark each had a couple of British bull- 
dog pistols, a number ten shotgun and a Winchester rifle of the 
largest size. 

"After Crow left the wagon he walked al)out forty steps for 
the purpose of killing McGregor, who was holding the marshal's 
horse. McGregor got behind the horse and Crow reached around in 
front of the horse and shot him with his pistol twice, the Inillets 
entering the breast and coming out at the back. 

"This put Henderson into it, who, seeing McGregor murdered 
in that way, rushed for Crow. They exchanged four shots and 
Plenderson fell dead. Then Crow left the grant and attempted to 
get to his home, which was distant about a mile and a half, but was 
shot dead on the way. 

"On account of this, seventeen of us, myself included, were 
indicted by the United States grand jury for resisting the United 
States marshal, and tried and convicted. I was not within three 
miles of it when it happened and yet we were convicted and served 
eight months in the San Jose jail for resisting the marshal, who as a 
matter of fact was resisted by no one. The marshal, indeed, had 
not attempted the exercise of any authority or the enforcement of 
any order. 

"^\. remarkable thing about the tight was that every man but 
one who fired a shot or was struck l)y a bullet was killed. 

"This troul)le was sim])Iy a legal fight on our jiart for our 
homes. I think and always shall think that the railroad had no 
legal right to the land, but that they acquired their title while we 
were fighting. 

"While we were serving our time, a petition of forty-seven thou- 
sand names was sent to the President ; the states of California and 
Nevada passed resolutions in our favor and there were numerous 
other petitions, etc. No one of them was listened to any more than 
if it had been a piece of blank In-own pai)er. 

"After we had served our time, the matter dragged on for about 
two years before it was finally settled. In my case, after being in 
the contest over nine years, I had to pay the railroad company $30.60 
an acre for mv land." 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 113 



CHAPTER XI 
THE KAWEAH COLONY 

Oue of tlie greatest eomiiiuuity enterjirises ever inaugurated in 
the United States had its inception in Tulare county in 1886. 

This was the Kaweah Co-operative Commonwealth, whicli in 
spite of certain failures in forethought and some incompetence and 
perhaps some dishonesty in management, flourished until 1891, when 
it met the same heart-breaking dissolution that had been tlie fate of 
all its predecessors. 

There is little doubt but that disrui)tion would have occurred 
sooner or later, on account of the impossibility of harmonizing the 
discordant elements of which it was composed. There is also a 
grave question as to whether even if successful for a time in the 
acquisition of lands and timber, mills and other property, the ])rod- 
ucts of the united labor of the colonists would not have been in large 
part alienated by some of its first olilicers. There seems, however, 
to be no doubt but that these colonists were treated by the United 
States government in a manner so outrageously unjust as to merit the 
severest condemnation. 

J. J. Martin and B. F. Haskell of Sau Francisco, and C. F. 
Keller of Traver, Tulare county, were the chief early promoters. 
Martin and Haskell were in 1885 prominent members and office 
holders in different unions or workingmen's societies. Haskell was 
attorney for several of these, and coupled with a pleasing address, 
possessed unusual gifts of language and persuasion. He was the 
advocate of many more or less impractical schemes for the better- 
ment of the workingman's condition and had assisted in organizing 
the California Land Purchase and Colonization association, and the 
Fish Rock Terra Cotta Co-operative company. Keller was a mem- 
ber of several socialistic societies in San Francisco and conducted a 
small store in Traver. 

In October of 1885, Martin informed members of the two asso- 
ciations referred to and also others that their agent had found a 
large body of splendid timber land in Tulare county, and that an 
association would l)e formed to accjuire it. The first plans were vague 
but seemed to be in the nature of a mutual company to get ])ossession 
of this tract and hold it for s])eculative i)uri)oses. Between forty 
and fifty applications were at once filed on lands lying along the 
north fork of the Kaweah river, eastward across the Marble Fork 
and including what is now known as the Giant Forest. The govern- 
ment price for these lands was $2.50 an acre, and as but few of the 
applicants were possessed of the reijuisite $400 to comjjlete the 



114 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

pnrrliase of a quarter section, a plan was in view to raise part 
of the money by liypothecating lands to which title had been 
secured. This, of course, would be a violation or evasion of the law, 
but was considered justifiable. 

It was agreed by the applicants that one-half the proceeds of 
the first sales of timber be devoted to a fund for publicity and pro- 
paganda. 

The Tulare "\'alley and Giant Forest railroad company was 
also organized and its stockholders assessed $60 each for the cost 
of a preliminary survey. Many were unable to jiay this small sura, 
but the difficulty was met by some contributing more liberally. It 
will be seen that the undertaking, however profitable poteutially, 
bade fair to be wrecked at the launching by reason of lack of capital. 

Then another snag was struck. Land Commissioner Sparks 
became suspicious at the large number of entries made within three 
days for lands lying in one body, especially as seven of the appli- 
cants gave as their residence one San Francisco lodging house. He 
therefore suspended the lauds from entry pending an investigation. 
Upon this action each of the applicants tendered to the receiver of 
the Visalia land office the sum of $2.50 per acre, which was of course 
rejected. This money was secured by using the same sum over and 
over again. 

Undeterred by these difficulties, the enthusiastic colonists pro- 
ceeded. As to the action of the government, they believed that the 
report of the special agent sent to investigate would be favorable to 
them, that he would approve their claims and bear witness to their 
good faith so that they could soon claim title. As to finances, a co- 
operative plan was thought out by which sonje capital for immediate 
use could be obtained through membership fees of non-residents, 
and by the labor of those on the ground rapid results be secured in 
the way of getting salable goods to market. 

The Kaweah Co-operative Commonwealth Colony was organized. 
Plans in great detail were elaborated. There were to be three di- 
visions under the control of managers; these subdivided into thirteen 
departments under superintendents and these again into fifty-eight 
bureaus under chiefs and the last into sections under foremen. 

The grand divisions were those of production, distribution and 
commonweal, and in their ramifications these included almost every 
activity, whether mental or bodily, known to man. The purposes of 
the association, it was set forth, were to insure its members against 
want, to provide comfortable liomes, to educate and to maintain har- 
mony, iipon the i^rinciples of justice, fraternity and co-operation. 
It was the intention to place witliin the reach of all members "a 
cultured, a scientific, an artistic life." An idea of the high aspira- 
tions of the embryo colony can be obtained by the following extracts 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 115 

from an article by Haskell, wliieli appeared iu tlie ol'iicial organ, 
"The Commonwealth." 

"We shall have schools there — not for the children alone, but 
for youths and maidens, for tlie babes and for the men and women. 
We sliall have songs and a band and the nuisic of tinkling guitars 
under summer stars bv tlie rushing waters of the white North 
Fork." * * * 

"It may well be that among us alone of all the people of the 
earth shall be taught courage as a creed, iidelity as a dogma, truth 
as a commandment, love as a law, and ]mrity as a truth." * * * 

"We sliall tell our children of the heroes of the world, not the 
butchers; of the moralists, not the priests." * * "The measured 
dances of Athenian days to teach them grace, the quaint ceremonials 
of the middle ages to teach them beauty, modern wonders of light 
and electricity to show them truth, the songs of old Sparta to move 
their hearts to valiant deeds ; the cruelly pitiable histories of the 
modern wage slave to stir their hearts to heroic ire and bind their 
wills to freedom's cause and creed alone." 

"We shall have painters and sculptors, I hope, in time, though 
it will be enough now for us all to be humble students." * * * 

"Upon one of the fiats by the river we shall build, out of the 
colored marble of Marble canyon, a temple and a theater for our- 
selves alone, and here also will we pursue the Beautiful, the True 
and the Good." 

The membership fee in the colony was $500, $100 payable in 
cash and the remainder, if desired, in labor or material. C. F. 
Keller was made general manager, J. J. Martin, secretary, J. Wright, 
purchasing agent, and B. F. Haskell, legal adviser.. Besides these, 
J. H. Redstone, P. N. Kuss and II. T. Taylor were among the first 
on the ground. 

About the last of 1886, work was commenced on a wagon road 
to the forest, and on March 1, 1887, articles of incorporation of the 
"Giant Forest Wagon and Toll Road" were filed. The plan was to 
pay the men in time checks at the rate of thirty cents per hour, or 
$2.40 i5er day, redeemable in such supplies or material as the asso- 
ciation had or in labor at the same rate. It was pointed out that 
while nominally working for a low wage, the workers, on account of 
sharing in the wealth created by the labor of all, would, in reality, 
be laying u)^ fortunes. For example, the material for a house, 
valued in the outside world at $1,000, could be secured for time 
checks equal to the hours that had been consumed in felling the 
trees and sawing and hauling the lumber, which would not amount 
at the thirty-cent rate to over $200. 

Plans of the ])ro])aganda were distributed throughout the country 
and many persons joined the colony. Some of these were workingmen 
socialists, others had wealth, culture, refinement. The beautiful pen 



116 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

pictures of Haskell served to throw such a glamour over the i)ropo- 
sition, that statements as to lands owned were not investigated before 
the entrance fee was paid in. On the north fork of the Kaweah, about 
three and one-half miles above Three Rivers, a town was started 
which grew until it contained upwards of one hundred dwellings. 
There was the company store, a blacksmith shop, }3laning mill, box 
factory. ]iostoffice. newspaper, etc. "Work on the road was actively 
prosecuted, and a survey made foi- the projected railroad. 

There were brains and lirawn and energy a plenty and excellent 
work resulted. Homes, too, were made on the level land, by the river, 
crops were sown, pastures fenced, orchards planted and barns built. 
Troubles, however, soon commenced. The laborers were insufficiently 
supplied with food, their diet at times being confined to flour, beans 
and coffee. There was a deficiency of clothes and supplies of all 
kinds at the company's store. Dissensions arose, and there was gen- 
eral dissatisfaction with the management. The commonest necessities 
of life were secured from outsiders in return for time checks ridicu- 
lously discounted. 

A number of disaffected members demanded to see the books 
and especially the membership rolls, but were refused by the officials 
in charge. The disgruntled ones considered that this was because 
they feared exposure to the non-resident members of the arbitrary, 
incompetent and perhajis dishonest way in which the affairs of the 
colony were being conducted. Martin was an executive of ability, 
energetic to a degree and his sincerity and honesty of purpose were 
questioned by but few. Haskell, however, was generally regarded 
as a slick rascal whose aim was to sell all the bites possible from 
the rosy apple before a sign of its rottenness reached the surface. 

In spite of these troubles, the road had by 1890 been completed 
to a point about twenty miles from the townsite of Kaweah and at 
an elevation of 5,400 feet had entered the ])ine belt. Here a little 
saw mill was erected, and a small quantity of lumber cut. This road, 
passing through a difficult mountain region, had been solidly con- 
structed at a good grade and had cost approximately $100,000. 
Modern tools were not employed and powder was used sparingly. In 
places the grade traversed precipitous mountain sides, making long, 
high rock restraining walls necessary. No better evidence of the 
equal and good faith of the colonists is needed than the fact that most 
of these walls have stood without repair to this day. 

In the meantime, land patents were still withheld, although B. F. 
Allen, the special agent sent here, had reported favorably. As late 
as 1891 Land Commissioner Groff recommended that the colonists 
should not be deprived of their lands, stating that they had com- 
plied faithfully with the law under which they had made filings; 
that they had exiiended over $100,000 in roads and imi)rovemeuts 
and had for five vears guarded the giant trees, saving them from 



TULAKK AXI) KlXfiS COUNTIES 117 

damage or destructiou hy fire, quoting details from Allen's report. 
However, the congress of 1890 had created the Sequoia National 
Park, which included these lands, and Secretary of the Interior Nohle 
denied all claims of the colony, but expressed the opinion that the 
settlers should be reimbursed for the improvements they had made. 

In addition to the internal dissensions mentioned, the officers 
quarreled among themselves and factious took sides in a row Ijetween 
Haskell and Martin. The former was accused of the misappropria- 
tion of colony funds and was in '!)1 arrested on a charge of em- 
bezzlement preferred by Thomas Kennedy, but the case was dis- 
missed. The greater portion of the colonists perceived that the end 
was at hand and disbandment began. 

Bitter hard it must have been, this giving up of home and friends 
and bright dreams of happy future after the sacrifice of former ties 
and after the giving of years of toil and devotion to a cause. How 
sickening the thoughts of what might have been! How bitter the 
thoughts of the false men who had betrayed their confidence and 
of the government that had unsci'upulously confiscated to its own 
purposes the magnificent road they had builded ! 

Early in 1891 a troop of cavalry under Captain Dorst was des- 
patched to guard the park and these ejected the colonists from gov- 
ernment laud. In April, Henry S. Hubbard, Henry T. Taylor, James 
J. Martin, B. F. Haskell and William Christie were tried in the 
United States district court at Los Angeles on a charge of cutting 
timber on government land, and found guilty. On appeal the case 
was dismissed. 

A few of the remaining colonists leased as a private enterprise 
a quarter section of land on the Mineral King road, from Isham 
Mullenix and started another sawmill. Work here was stopped by 
the soldiers, but when the Interior Department learned that it was 
on deeded land they were allowed to proceed. 

Quite a uumber of the colonists remained in the vicinity of 
Kaweah, many having secured other land locations or perfected 
entries made on lands outside the park. These have all proven 
worthy, industrious citizens and now possess comfortable homes 
and a fair share of worldlv goods. 



118 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 



CHAPTER XII 
THE ABORIGINES 

At the time of the entry of whites into the San Joaquin valley 
tlie territory comprising what later became Tulare county had a 
dense Indian population. These consisted of two distinct races, one 
called the Yokuts, more than twenty sub-tribes of which ranged the 
country between the Fresno river and the Tejon pass; the other a 
Piute branch of several sub-tribes living on Mill creek and in Eshom 
valley. 

Among the former were the Ta-chi (whence Laguna de Tache) 
in the Tulare lake district, the Ta-lum-ne, of Visalia, the Wik-tsum- 
ne, near Lemon Cove; other settlements were on Poso creek, Tule 
river. Deer creek, one near Porterville. one near the forks of the 
Tule river and one on the present Indian reservation, others at Three 
rivers, Dry creek, Woodlake, the Yokohl valley. Outside creek, etc. 

The Piute tribes were the Wuk-sa-chi, of Eshom valley, the 
Wo-po-noich and the En-dim-bits. An idea of their numbers may be 
gained from the fact that the Wik-tsum-ne chief alone could muster 
a thousand armed warriors from his own and other Yokut tribes 
of which he was the ruler. While the above roughly indicates the 
home locations of the larger Indian settlements, it must be under- 
stood that their residences were far from permanent. The hot sum- 
mer found them high in the Sierras stalking deer, eating straw- 
berries and enjoying the climate; in the fall, the harvest season for 
acorns, he was either in the foothills or in the oak belt of the plains, 
according to the crop; in the winter, duck hunting by the lake 
furnished good sport. 

The limits of this history prevent anything approaching a com- 
plete outline of their manners, customs, habits, etc., but the follow- 
ing bits were chosen as interesting sidelights on a mode of life that 
has passed away forever. 

TRADITIONS 

Among these Indians no traditions of migrations existed. Thev 
believed themselves aborigines— the tradition "as to their oridn was 
that man was created by the joint effort of the wolf and the eagle, 
and brought forth from the mountain peaks— different tribes from 
different peaks. The Wutchumnas point to Homer's Nose, on the 
south fork of the Kaweah, as the place of their oris>-in, while the 
Kaweahs point to the foothill i^eak near Redbauks, called Colvin's 
Point, as the cradle of their tribe. These Indians believed that the 
eagle makes it his especial care to guard the welfare of the human 
race, and the eagle on our coin is accepted as evidence that the 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 119 

whites reooguize the sacred character of the bird. The wolf is held 
to have repented the part he took in the production of man, and to be 
constantly seeking the destruction of the race. 

ANOTHER CREATION MYTH OF THE YOKUTS 

The following tradition was obtained by George W. Stewart in 
1903, from Jim Herrington, an Indian then ill and now dead, of the 
Wukchamni or Wiktsumne tribe of the Yokuts. This tribe lived on 
the Kaweah river, in the vicinitv of the present town of Lemon 
Cove : 

"Long ago the whole world was rock and there was neither fire 
nor light. The coyote (kaiyu) sent his brother, the wolf (ewayet, 
iweyit), into the mountains, telling him: 'Go upward until you come 
to a large lake, where you will see fire. Then take some of it.' The 
wolf did as ordered by the coyote, and after some fighting, obtained 
a part of the fire. From this he made the moon and then the sun, 
and put them in the sky. Then it was light, and lias been so ever 
since. 

"The eagle (tsohit, djokhid) kept the coyote at work, and the 
latter made the panther (wuhuset, wohoshit) and the wolf help him. 
The coyote made the springs and streams. He worked very hard 
to do this. Then he and the eagle made people. They also made deer 
and elk and antelope and all game animals, and put fish into the 
water. They gave these animals to the people who went everywhere 
and killed the game for food. 

"The coyote, the wolf and the panther said: 'In time there 
will be too many people and they will kill us.' Now the coyote was 
sorry that be had helped the eagle make the people. The panther 
said: 'They will kill us if we do not go away.' 'Then go up,' the 
eagle told him. The panther answered: *I have no feathers, I cannot 
fly, I cannot go up.' 'Then go to the mountains,' said the eagle. To 
the wolf he said: 'Go to the bills,' and the coyote: 'Go to the plains.' 
The three went where they were told and have lived there ever since. ' ' 

DIET 

Acorns, of course, were the staple, but it is a mistake to suppose 
that the Indians' diet lacked variety. In addition to game of all 
kinds and fish, there were various kinds of seeds, nuts, berries, roots, 
and young shoots of the tule and clover. 

Acorns were stored in harvest time in cribs made of woven 
withes, usually placed on the top of a large stone and securely 
roofed over with a rain]>roof mat to protect them from the elements. 
In making bread, these, after being shelled, were ground in a mortar 
and placed in water in a shallow bed of sand near a stream. The 
action of water running in and out of this depression removed the 
bitterness. Placed then in their water-tight baskets this gruel was 



120 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

cooked by means of hot rocks and Tormed a dish esteemed by whites 
as well as natives. 

One of the rarer delicacies of the Indian's tal)le was roast 
caterpillar. When the variety used — a kind of measuring worm — 
was not found near camp, long trips were made for the purpose 
of collecting them in quantities. A fire of fagots in a hole in the 
ground was allowed to burn down to coals. These removed and the 
hole nicely dusted of ashes, a few quarts of the juicy larvae were 
poured in, which, quickly crisping, were soon ready to serve. 

INDIAX WEA.POXS 

The bow and arrow was the only weapon. The how was made 
of ash or mahogany, strengthened by the la^'ing over it of the sinew 
taken from the backbone of the deer. Arrows were constructed in 
three dit¥ereut ways, according to the purpose for which they were to 
be used. For warfare and for large game they were flint-tipped. 
An intermediate weapon was made of button willow to which a hard- 
wood ]ioint was spliced. For birds and other small game, a peculiar 
construction was in use. These were about three feet long with a 
blunt point. About half an inch from the end four crossbars, each 
about an inch long, were fastened. Two of these were at right angles 
to the other two and four projecting points were thus formed, ren- 
dering accurate shooting less essential. 

THE MEDICIiS'E MAX 

As with other tribes, the medicine man was a person of great 
importance, I)ut woe unto him if he failed to effect a cure. A few 
instances of death following his treatment was cause for his summary 
execution. 

A sojourn in the sweathouse was usually prescribed, but bleeding 
was also common. An incision was made, either at the temples or 
the forehead, and he sucked the blood and spat it out. 

His dress was gorgeous. The foundation for the rohe was a 
kind of netting made from the inner bark of trees. Through the 
meshes of this was interwoven the brightest colored feathers of 
many species of birds, together with topknots, fox and coyote tails, 
rabbit ears, etc. 

At a death there were chants from dusk till dawn. The corpse 
was buried usually in a high, dry place in a round hole in a sitting 
posture, the ankles tied to the thighs. All personal belongings were 
placed with it. Members of the family of the dead smeared their 
faces black, in mourning. 

G.\THEKING SALT 

In order to gather salt, a unique method was followed. In the 
mornings, when the salt grass was wet with dew, a squaw would 
go forth armed with a long smooth stick. This she would ply back 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 121 

and forth through the wet grass and wave in the air. The result 
was a deposit of salt a quarter of an inch thick on the stick, which 
was then scraped off. 

CAPTURING WILD PIGEONS 

Wild pigeons helped fill the Indian's larder and the methods 
which were employed in their ca])ture are of great interest. It 
seems that the jjigeons preferred mineral water, whether it be 
effervescent from soda, or salty, sulphurous or combining the tonic 
proj^erties of iron and arsenic, to the ordinary si)ring water of the 
mountains. At all mineral springs pigeons came in flocks. The crafty 
buck wlio held first place among those who lay snares, taking ad- 
vantage of this trait, made his preparations accordingly. 

In front of the spring a large smooth low mound was heaped. 
Next the mound, directl.v facing it, was dug a trench of the size and 
de})tli to accommodate a man lying down. The front end of this 
trench towards the mound was open, but screened with grasses; the 
top was covered. In this he lay in wait. An innocent brown willow 
stick, at its end a little noose of sinew, lay on the mound. When 
the pigeons congregated an unobserved motion of the wrist, a little 
raise of the stick sufficed to place this loop over the head of an 
unlucky bird. Silently the game was drawn to the trench, the head 
jerked off and shortly another and yet another fell victim until 
sufficient fresh pigeon meat for the band was secured. It is stated 
that, snared in this waj^ the pigeon does not flutter or raise a dis- 
turbance — he merely, like a stubborn mule, pulls back. To insure 
another flight and alighting at the same place for the following day, 
should occasion require, a few of the itirds are kept alive and picketed 
out as decoys. 

NOVEL FISHING 

In the capture of fish, the use of the hook and line was unknown 
to the Indians. Three effective methods were in use. In the narrow 
streams, which were numerous in the valley, weirs were made by 
driving a row of willow sticks diagonally across the stream and in- 
terlacing the fence thus formed with tules. On the upper side of 
this structure, near one bank a semi-circular trap of like construction 
was built. The fish going down sti'eam, finding their way Itlocked 
by this l)arrier, worked along it until they found their way into the 
trap through a small opening. A larger door which included this 
opening allowed the entrance of Mr. Indian to secure the spoil. 

In the pools or sloughs or other places where water was con- 
fined to holes without an outlet, balls of certain kind of weed were 
thrown, which exerted a stuiiefying effect on the fish. They sickened 
and would rise to the surface, gas))ing, when they were easily cap- 
tured. 



122 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

lu the fall of the year when the water in the main Kaweali river 
was low, and long still pools were formed having shallow outlets, 
still another method was employed. After damming the outlet, muUen 
weed was thrown in until the water was so roiled tjiat the fish, unable 
to see, could be caught by hand. Scores of Indians, both bucks and 
squaws, would wade into these holes and grope for fish, attesting 
their success by loud shouts of laughter. 

HUNTING DEER 

The weapons of the Indian being to our modern eyes ])uerilely 
inefficient, needs be that he must make up in personal skill their 
shortcomings. One of our modern sportsmen, for example, could 
never get close enough to a deer to hit it with an arrow, and if liy 
chance he should do so the wound would be too slight to be effective. 
The Indian knew how. The method, as told by Jason Barton, who 
as a boy found his playmates and companions among the Indians, 
was this: Waiting ready, we will say at the edge of a mountain 
meadow, watched the huntsman, bow in hand. When the wary buck 
came for his morning browse, his keen-flashing vision included naught 
of danger, for nothing moved. A peculiarity of a grazing deer is that 
while at short intervals he throws up his head to see or smell any- 
thing that may warn of danger, he precedes this by a flick of his 
tail. As he grazes the Indian advances a step, perhaps two steps, 
without a sound ; the tail twitches and he is frozen into immobility. 
There is not a flicker of an eyelash. Assured of safety, the deer once 
more grazes and once more his enemy takes a step. An hour, per- 
haps two hours, go by and the hunter is within bow-shot. The arrow 
is loosed, and the aim is true, but the deer does not fall dead in its 
tracks. This is beyond the capacity of the weapon. Tlie shot is for 
the groin, where eventually, sickening trouble for the deer must ensiie 
and he be forced to lie down. That is enough for the Indian. At 
closer range next time, after an arduous pursuit lasting perhaps a 
day, the quarry is finally despatched. 

CHARMING A SQUIRREL 

In approaching to within bow-shot of a squirrel a similar caution 
was exercised. With bow bent, arrow set and aimed, the Indian would 
take his stand and without the slightest movement except that of a 
gradual advance, would a])parently so hold the squirrel's attention in 
a sort of trance that a distance near enough to speed the missile with 
surety was gained. 

CATCHING DUCKS 

Without a doulit, white men would find it quite impossible with- 
out a weaijon to secure a mess of wild ducks. Not so our Indian. 
Around the borders of Tulare lake existed labyrinths of water lanes 
bordered with tules. Covered entanglements of these tules were 
formed and the ducks herded into them bv Indians on tule rafts. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 127 

rals for the proper liandlin.ii' of stock. Each district ranger has liis 
house, barn and otlier buildings at liis winter headquarters in the 
low country, as well as a cabin at his summer headquarters in the 
high mountains. 

Unlike the National Parks the National Forest imposes no 
unusual restrictions upon fishing and hunting within its borders. 
Only the just laws established by the state of California for the regu- 
lation of these sports obtain here. As every statutory ranger is a 
state deputy game and fish commissioner, it is his duty to enforce 
these laws, and he usually does his duty. — G. W. Purdy. 

MOUNTAIN TR.\ILS 

The first trail across the Sierra Nevada mountains within th^e 
limits of what now constitutes Tulare county was partially constructed 
in 1861 by John Jordan. It took its origin in the Yokohl valley, 
crossed the Blue ridge, wound arouud by Peck's canyon through 
Quinn's Horse Camp and following dowu Little Kern to Trout mead- 
ows, thence up Big Kern to a point below where Kern lakes now are, 
crossed the river and, i)roceeding eastward via Monache meadows, was 
to strike Owens river below the lake. 

The pressing need of a shorter and quicker route for the host 
of prospectors eager to reach the new mines warranted the project. 
Mr. Jordan secured a charter to maintain it as a toll road and com- 
pleted nearly all the work on this side of Kern river in 1861. In 1862, 
while attempting the passage of Kern river on a raft, he was drowned. 
There were four in the party, the others being his two sons, Allen 
and Tolbert, and a man named Gashweiler. Allen remained on shore ; 
Gashweiler, as the raft became unmanageable in the swift current, 
jumped onto a rock. Tolbert grabbed a limb of a tree which lay on 
the water and swung himself to safety on its trunk. Mr. Jordan was 
tipped off, and although a powerful swimmer, was sucked under by 
the strong current and drowned, the body never being recovered. 

In the following year the sum of $1,()00 was raised by subscrip- 
tion in Visalia to comjilete the trail. G. W. Warner undertook the 
work and finished it, liuilding a bridge across Kern river. The magni- 
tude of this latter undertaking will be better realized when it is 
understood that all chains, harness, stretchers and im])lements had 
to be ])acked from Visalia. 

In 1863 J. B. Ilockett built the trail which bears his name. This, 
commencing at Three Rivers, proceeded up the south fork of the 
Kaweah, jiassing the Ilockett lakes and meadows and joined the 
Jordan trail, continuing on its route to Big Kern. Instead of cross- 
ing the river at the saTue point, however, it continued up the stream to 
a point near the lower Fuiiston meadows, whence crossing and ascend- 
ing the wall of the Kern canyon, it made its way via the Whitney 
meadows to the crossing of Cottonwood creek, near the lakes, and 



128 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

thence clown to Independeuoe. This trail, though altered to eliminate 
steep pitches and other dillicult sections, is followed today, practically 
as laid out fifty years ago. 

The trail from Eshom valley through to Owens river by way of 
Kings river canyon, was an old Indian trail, as in part the others 
were. 

COUNTY ROADS DURING THE LATE FIFTIES 

At this period roads were few in number, the principal being 
these: The stage road to Stockton, which proceeded westerly as far 
as the old white house, on the Goshen road and then turned in a 
northwesterly direction to Cross creek; the two immigrant roads to 
Los Angeles; the road to Woodville which passed what is now the 
]\fiueral King orchard, crossed the Ship bridge and continued on to 
the Thomas mill in the mountains; a road through the Packwood 
district which proceeded in a westerly direction from near the south 
city limits of Visalia ; a road ]iroceeding west from the Ship, or 
Cutler bridge to the old Warren Matthews place on Elbow creek, and 
thence by the Bass Parker (now Rush) place to Smith's on Kings 
river and known as the upper Stockton road. 

Due north of town lay a swamp, the St. John's river not yet 
having been formed. The first road made to cross this proceeded by 
the Joe Roger's (now Pratt) place and connected with the Stockton 
road. The Pacheco Pass, or Gilroy road, proceeded west through 
"tin can alley," now "West Oak street, crossed Kings river at Mat 
Isely's point, then turned west four miles to Kingston, thence in a 
northwesterly direction by the head of Fresno slough, passing Fire- 
haugh, where the ferry was located, and on to the St. Louis ranch, 
at the mouth of Pacheco Pass. 

One of the roads to Los Angeles left town at the old Wiley 
Watson jilace, ran due south to Dry creek, thence east about what is 
now Tulare avenue to the Evans' place (now Evansdale orchard). 
After passing this it ran due east to the Pike Lawless place on Pack- 
wood creek, thence easterly to near the site of the former Deep 
Creek schoolhouse, thence southeasterly to Outside creek and on in 
the same direction to Porterville. 

The other road to Los Angeles crossed the old Kelly place just 
south of town, followed in a general way the route of the Tulare road 
and passed through the Buzzard's roost. 

The road from the western portion of Tulare county to the 
coast, crossing the coast range through the Lawless Gap, follows 
essentially the route taken by John Hawpe, Bert Lawless and W. H. 
Mills, who in 1856 traveled to the coast and thence to Los Angeles, 
with many yoke of oxen, which they there exchanged for stock 
cattle, securing eight head for each yoke. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 129 

A road from Warren Matthews ]:)lace on Elbow creek through 
Visalia to Kern river was surveyed and ordered built in 1857. Five 
district overseers were ajipointed by the supervisors in charge of 
sections as follows: First district — north of Kaweah and Mill creek, 
"W. Matthews; Second district — Kaweah river to Elk bayou, Wiley 
Watson; Third district — Elk bayou to White river, I. S. Clapp; 
Fourth district — White river to North Fork of Posey creek; Fifth 
district — Posey creek to Calwell's ferry. 

In 1863 a franchise was granted by the legislature to John 
McFarlane, Peter Goodhue, William P. Poer, H. A. Bostwick, E. E. 
Calhoun and others, under the name of McFarlane & Co., to build 
a toll road to Owens valley. This road, via Keyesville and Walker's 
pass, was completed in 1864 and proved of great benefit to the pub- 
lic. About one million pounds of freight passed over it the tirst 
year, and it carried a heavy traffic for some time, but financially the 
venture was a failure. 



130 TULARE AXD KINGS COUNTIES 



CHAPTER XIV 
DEVELOPMENT OF INDUSTRIES 

ELECTRIC POWER 

One of the most jiotent factors in the development of Tulare 
county has been the electrical energy developed on the Kaweah and 
Tule rivers. Electricity has materially aided the orange and lemon 
industry and made more productive thousands of acres of valley land 
that was worth hut little prior to the introduction of pumping plants. 
About twenty-five per cent of the valley and foothill land in Tulare 
county may be irrigated by ditches leading out of the streams that 
flow from the Sierra Nevada mountains. As the water from these 
rivers is all appropriated the only way to make the rest of the land 
of any value is to pump the water from wells. The practicability of 
this method was first demonstrated at Lindsay in 1890, the motive 
power employed being steam or gasoline, which were found incon- 
venient and expensive. 

In 1891 the Tulare County Times began advocating the building 
of a power plant on the Kaweah river and persisted in setting forth 
the value to the county resulting from the completion of such a 
project. William H. Hannnond became interested in the matter and 
he, together with Ben M. Maddox, editor of the Times, sought to 
interest local capital in the enterprise, but got no encouragement. 

In 1897 A. 6. Wishon became associated with Mr. Hammond in the 
management of the Visalia Water company, and these two again took 
up the jiroposition. Filings were made on the water of the east fork 
of the Kaweah and surveys showing the head obtainable were made. 
Renewed efforts to enlist the support of capitalists were made, but 
without success. Mr. Hammond then went to London and explained 
the proposition to his brother, John Hays Hammond, the famous 
mining engineer. He at once agreed to put up one-half the money 
needed and on the strength of this, Leopold Hirsch agreed to supply 
the remainder. Mr. Hammond at once cabled the good news to 
Visalia and it was received here with mucli rejoicing. 

In the- fall of 1898 the work of building a flume for the No. 1 
power house was begim and the ])lant was completed in June, 1899. 
The water was diverted from the east fork of the Kaweah river at a 
point 1)elow Cain's Flat, on the Mineral King road, carried by flume 
seven miles, whence a drop of nine hundred feet to the power house 
was secured, developing about two thousand horse power. 

In 1902 John Hays Hammond bought out the interest of Mr. 
Hirsch, the latter gentleman being dissatisfied on account of failure 
to pay dividends. Ben M. Maddox, in 1902, succeeded A. G. Wishon 



TULARE AND KlN(iS COUNTIES 131 

as business manager, a ])Osition he holds at the present time. William 
H. Hammond remained jiresident of the company until he died, in 
1908, when he was succeetk'd liv John CofTee Hays, the present chief 
executive. The company Jiow has suli-stations at Visalia, Tulare, 
Tipton, Delano, Ducor, PortcrNille, Lindsay, Exeter, Lemon Cove and 
Venice. 

The No. 2 power house on the Kaweah was completed in 1905, 
as was the auxiliary steam plant in A'isalia. The Tule river plant 
was finished in 1909, which made a combined installation of six 
thousand kilowatts. Nine hundred pumping plants are operated. An 
addition of one-thousand horse power is now being added to the steam 
})lant in Visalia and two more plants on the Kaweah river are in 
course of construction, whicli will add ten thousand horse power to 
the system. The conservation of water for the operation of these 
plants has necessitated extensive engineering works in the high 
Sierras. Eagle lake has been tapped and its stored supply is ready 
for use at seasons of low water. Wolverton creek has been dammed, 
creating an immense reservoir at Long Meadows. 

In addition to the pumping load, the com})any supi^lies light 
and power for all jnirposes in the cities of Visalia, Tulare, Porter- 
ville, Lindsay and Exeter, and in the towns of Tipton, Delano, Rich- 
grove, Ducor, Terra Bella, Strathmore, Lemon Cove, Woodlake and 
Klink. It also supplies the power to operate the Visalia electric 
road. The comjiany lias recently comyjleted a large, substantial and 
finely equipped ollice building on West Main street, in Visalia. 

The San Joaquin Power Company, a Fresno institution, sujiplies 
power at Dinuba and Orosi, in the northern end of the county, and 
also southeast of Tulare along the Santa Fe railroad. This company 
is building a water-power i)lant on the Tule river. 

The Pacific Light and Power company is building a tower liiie 
across the county to take current from Big creek in Fresno county 
to Los Angeles. 

The Tulare County Power Company is building a steam j^lant 
at. Tulare, the current to be used in the cities of Tulare, Exeter and 
Lindsay, and the surrounding neighborhoods. This company has 
a filing on the Tule river and work is being done on the conduit that 
is to take the water from the river to the power-house, which is 
to be located near Globe. This is a joint-stock company with co- 
operative features, financed locally. Messrs. Holley & HoUey, of 
Visalia, promoted the enterprise and its success seems assured. 
Stockholders were secured in large part among the users of power 
for pumping and to these is gi'anted a lower rate than that ac- 
corded to non-stockholders. 

MUUGATIOS 

Irrigation in Tulare county dates almost fiom the county's or- 



i;}2 TULARP] AND KINGS COUNTIES 

ganization. Tlie wjitcrs from a ramified network of ditches, from 
several Imiidied artesian wells, from thousands of electrically oper- 
ated pumping plants, is now distiilmted to almost every portion of 
the foothill and valley section. 

No estimates may be made of the increased productivity, in- 
creased value due to more profital)le kinds of crops, increased capa- 
city for supporting population and the other incalculable benefits 
accruing from the distribution of water and its intelligent use. Yet 
the hisory of irrigation development here and the causes thereof 
differ so materially from tliat of the reclaimed districts that a few 
words of explanation and comparison are necessary. 

In the first place, water did not here cause "the desert to blos- 
som as the rose," for the reason that no desert ever existed. True, 
there were originally vast semi-arid ]ilains. These in later years, 
without a drop of water artificially applied, produced banner wheat 
crops. In 1886 this yield amounted to fourteen thousand carloads, 
and for many seasons Tulare held first rank in wheat ]3roduction 
among California counties. 

But in the sections favored by the early settlers — the delta lauds 
of the P'our Creeks country, there was not even semi-aridity. Here 
was a vast, eye-delighting oasis. Here, beneath groves of oak ex- 
tending miles and miles in either direction, lush, rank meadow grass 
thrived. Here, as far as the eye could follow was a tract where 
verdure was perennial, where riotous growth almost unceasingly 
persisted. Both in the winter by reason of the rains, and in May 
and June by reason of the melting snow of the mountains, much 
land was subject to overflow. Swamps and sloughs were numerous, 
and a system of drainage would have been beneficial. 

The activity of the pioneers in taking out water was usually for 
the purpose of securing stock water on lands not bordering streams, 
and to irrigate lands for a second or fall crop of corn and pumpkins 
after hay had been cut. It was not until a much later day, when 
a general influx of new settlers desirous of farming and planting 
to vineyards and orchards, lands hitherto held suitable only for 
grain farming, that the value of the water rights secured by these 
early diversions was realized. 

The first effort to irrigate lands about Visalia was made in 
185-I-, when Dr. Reuben Matthews, assisted by his neighbors, cut a 
ditch from Mill creek to his' mill near town. The ditch was intended 
to bring water not only to run the mill, but also to irrigate lands 
for gardens. In later years the Jennings' and one or two other 
ditches obtained their water from this sluiceway. The Persian ditch 
dates also from 1854, the Evans and Fleming from '58, the Watson 
from 1855 or 1856, and the Birch from the early '60s. In the period 
from 1865 to 1872, a number of irrigation projects were inaugurated. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 133 

cliief ;iiii()ii,i>' wliifli were the Pioneer, tlie Peoi)le's Consolidated ;nul 
the Wutcliumma ditch companies. The pioneer, organized in 1866, 
took its water from the Tule river, well w]} into the hills, and cov- 
ered the territory adjacent to Porterville. The Peojjle's Consoli- 
dated Ditch Company built its big canal of about twenty feet in 
width in 1871, the head being taken from the Kaweah, a few miles 
west of Lemon Cove. While the first work of this system did not 
begin until this date, many of the water rights secured dated as far 
back as the '50s, and were obtained by a consolidation of the interests 
of the owners with the new oi-ganization. 

In 1872 the Wutclmmma company organized and commenced the 
construction of a system which now consists of about forty miles of 
main and branch ditches. The water is taken from the Kaweah near 
its intersection with the St. John about eighteen miles east of 
Visalia, and is carried to ])oints ten miles west of Visalia. Bravo 
Lake, situated near the intake of this canal, is used as a stor- 
age reservoir for flood waters so that a supply is maintained 
throughout the year. 

Numerous other diversions, including the Tulare District Com- 
))any, under the Wright Act, have been made from tlie Kaweah an(l 
St. John rivers so that today twenty-nine corporations divide their 
waters. All Init two of these secure their flow below the point of 
divergence. 

The amount of water in the river at this point probably aver- 
ages during the three months of April, May and June in the neigh- 
borhood of twelve hundred cubic feet per second, rapidly dropping 
then until mid-summer, when it is negligible. Necessarily, the ap- 
portionment to each company of its jDroper share has been fraught 
with difficulties, and considerable expensive litigation has resulted. 
In order to best secure their rights by being able to act unitedly and 
harmoniously, the ditch companies taking water from these two 
streams have formed the Kaweah River Water Association and the 
St. John River Water Association. A spirit of com])romise has 
been fostered and in 1907 a threatened law suit of enormous pro- 
portions was settled in this way; one of the features of the agree- 
ment being that the water in the two streams is divided equally 
until such time as a low stage of eighty cubic feet is reached. The 
entire flow is then diverted into the Kaweah and runs there until 
the first day of October. Then, if the flow exceeds eighty cubic feet, 
or as soon thereafter as it does, the stream is again equally divided. 
Diversion dams at the confluence of these streams and some 
kind of a division of water there, date from 1H9'2. In 1011 a struc- 
ture of cement dams and confining walls was completed so that now 
perfect control and equitable division is made possible. 

The next great irrigating enterprises were the Alta and Tulare 



134 TULAKE AXD IvIXGS COUXTIES 

irrigation districts, organized under the Wright law, which pro- 
vides for the issuance by a community of bonds which become a 
lien on the property in the district. 

ALTA DISTRICT 

In the early '80s, along Kings river and near Traver there lay 
some large tracts of land owned by Darwin & Ferguson, who were 
engaged in stockraising. Their brand was "76,'" and the country 
was called the 76 country. Considerable attention was also given 
to grain raising, and good crops could generally be had with the 
usual rainfall. 

In 1881 P. Y. Baker and D. K. Zumwalt conceived the idea of 
bringing water onto the land and organized the 76 Land and "Water 
company. A main canal one hundred feet wide on the bottom and 
deep enough to carry a stream of water five feet deep, together with 
several large laterals, was constructed, the point of diversion being 
on Kings river, about fourteen miles northeast of Eeedley. 

Now, in 1888, an irrigation district under the Wright law was 
projected in the northern part of the county and at an election bonds 
were voted in the sum of $675,000. Bonds were only issued to the 
amount of $410,000, that sum proving sufficient. This district was 
named Alta, and embraces one hundred and thirty thousand acres, 
four-fifths of which is now under irrigation. The property and 
water rights of the 76 company were purchased and various exten- 
sions have from time to time been made, so that now, including 
laterals of a width of ten feet or more, there are over three hundred 
miles of ditch system. A territory is covered lying within the fol- 
lowing described extremities: southeasterly to a point six miles east 
and four miles south of Monson; southwesterly to points three miles 
west and three miles south of Traver; easterly to a point one mile 
north of Orosi. Portions of Kings and Fresno, as well as Tulare, 
counties are included in this area. 

This district has been a success from the very beginning. In 
twenty years after its formation the number of land owners within 
its boundaries had increased about three hundred per cent. 

From early spring until the middle of summer there is water in 
the greatest abundance for the needs of its dense population of 
orchardists, vineyardists and alfalfa growers, which is secured at a 
cost of fifty cents per acre. 

TULAKE IRRIGATION DISTRICT 

This district was organized in 1889, and in 1890 bonds in the 
sum of $500,000 were voted and placed on sale. Work on the main 
canal, which had a width of sixty-four feet and a dejith of six feet, 
was commenced in 1891. This canal had a capacity of five hundred 
feet per second and took its water from the north side of the St. 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 135 

Jolm river. It was to be about twelve miles long with seven laterals 
varying in width from ten to forty feet, carrying the water to all 
portions of the district. 

In one sense of the word, this district was a disheartening failure 
and for many years proved a heavy incubus to every landowner in 
the district embraced. The causes leading to this condition were 
many, chief among them being the depressed condition of business 
in Tulare resulting from the removal of the railroad shops, the panic 
of 1893, and the failure to get water. This latter difficulty was oc- 
casioned by litigation involving the water rights of the district; by 
the series of dry years immediately following the construction of the 
canal and perhaps also by reason of the lack of sufficient funds to 
complete fully the plant as originally projected. At any rate, the 
pa^Tuent of a heavy tax to meet the interest on and provide a sink- 
ing fund for the bonds, without receiving any benefits was universally 
resented. The validity of the bond issue was attacked and, acting 
under the advice of attorneys, farmers refused to pay the tax, a 
condition lasting about six years. An injunction preventing execu- 
tion on lands to satisfy judgment for default of taxes was obtained. 
Accrued interest by this time amounted to $150,000, making a total 
indebtedness of $650,000. 

In the meantime laud greatly depreciated in value became, in 
fact, unsalable by reason of this cloud on the title. It became ap- 
parent that some agreement between bondholders and landowners 
must be reached if general bankruptcy was to be avoided. Joe Gold- 
man, a large landowner in the district and also a heavy bondholder, 
took the initiative. He agitated the submission by the bondholders 
of an offer to surrender the bonds on payment of fifty per cent, 
of their face value, all interest to be remitted. It took months of 
hard work to secure the consent of each individual bondholder, but 
it was finally accomplished and the bonds placed in escrow in a 
Tulare bank. The plan then was to raise the $250,000 by one direct 
tax. Assessors were appointed and another long tug of war ensued, 
many property owners at first refusing to consent to the assessment 
or to pay the tax. 

Eventually all were, however, brought into the fold, the levy 
was made and the money collected. October 17, 1903, was set as 
the day for the transfer and a monster celebration was planned 
and carried out, to signifj' the universal rejoicing at the lifting of 
the load. 

Some six thousand people, including Governor Pardee, Mayor 
Snyder of Los Angeles, numerous bankers from San Francisco and 
Los Angeles and other notables were in attendance. Dramatically, 
the bonds were consigned to the flames of a big bonfire. Land values 
immediately doubled, trebled, quadrupled. A delayed prosperity 



136 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

proved swift in action after its arrival. The ditch system of the 
company became the unencumbered property of the district. No tax 
is levied for its maintenance, running expenses being secured by 
water tolls. 

It will doubtless be a matter of great surjirise to manj' to learn 
that in all the foregoing in which is indicated the development of a 
very extensive system, no mention has been made of other sources 
of supply equal to or in excess of that obtained from the Kings, 
Kaweah, St. John and Tule rivers combined. This is the under- 
ground flow, belief in which seems to have existed in very early 
days. Not until 1890, however, when at Lindsay, in wells but seventy 
feet deep, water rose to within twenty feet of the surface and main- 
tained that level under constant pumjiing, did the people begin to 
realize the fortune that lay below ground. 

ARTESIAN AND OTHER WELLS 

The efforts to get water from artesian wells for general use in 
Tulare county were first made in 1859. At that date some of the 
citizens of Visalia and vicinity sank a well, al)0ut the ]iresent cross- 
ing of Main and Court streets in Visalia. But nothing came of it, 
for after boring two hundred and twelve feet and finding no stratum 
that would rise to the surface, the work was abandoned; but the 
well was long used by the fire department. 

The Southern Pacific, in 1875, bored a well near the track south 
of Tipton. At a depth of two hundred and ten feet a stratimi of 
water was found that flowed to the surface in a strong stream. Many 
other flowing wells have since been bored. But the water is tepid, 
with a slight smell of sulphur and rather insipid. In 1881 another 
well was bored on the Paige and Morton ranch, and at a depth of 
three hundred and thirty feet a grand flow of water was obtained. 
The comi^letion of this well was made the occasion of a great cele- 
bration. It established the theorj^ that there is an artesian belt in 
the county. There are at the present time about four hundred flow- 
ing wells used for watering stock and for irrigation. This belt of 
flowing wells seems to be mostly west of the main line of the rail- 
road, and to extend to the westerly line of Tulare lake. 

But the wells along the great plain sloping westerly from the 
eastern foothills, though none of them are flowing, might justly be 
termed artesian. The water is inexhaustible, of fine quality for 
domestic use and for irrigation, and has wrought that wonderful 
miracle of transforming those dry plains to gardens teeming with 
fruits and flowers. 

DAIRYING INDUSTRY 

Coincident with the arrival of the first family cow, tied behind 
a prairie schooner, the dairy industry started in Tulare county, but 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 137 

it was not until the introduction of alfalfa and the realization of its 
adaptation to the eiimate and soil that there was any idea that dairy- 
in.e; could be conducted as a separate and ])rofitable business. 

Tlie Delta, in its issue of February 4, 1860, under the head of 
Alfalfa, thus speaks: "Those desirous of trying the adaptation of this 
clover to the soil of this valley can now have an opportunity of so 
doing by calling at McLane's drug store for the seed. There is no 
doubt in the minds of those who have seen this clover growing that 
it will be one of the most productive crops in the valley. When it 
becomes once rooted, the drought will never affect it in the least. 
In this light soil it will i-oot lifteen or twenty feet, at which depth 
water can always be found in a])undance in every i)lace in the valley 
in the dryest season. Farmers, try it." 

The farmers did tr.\- it and wonders have been accomplished. 
It early became ajjparent that dairying should pay and so a numlier 
of farmers about Visalia formed a joint stock company and built a 
creamery. This was a two-story wooden building, situated on the 
Visalia-Goshen railroad about a mile west of the city limits of Vi- 
salia, and was completed in 1890. W. H. Blain was ]iresident, and 
S. M. Gilliam secretary. 

Shortly afterwards D. K. Zumwalt erected a cheese factory and 
creamei'v on the Tulare-Goshen railroad about midway between the 
two towns. Strange as it seems now, both of these early enterprises 
were destined to failure. Several causes contributed to this result, 
chief among them being the ajiathy of farmers toward engaging in 
the business, owing to the publicity of the extraordinary prolits made 
by the early orchards, at this time just coming into bearing. Dairy- 
ing appeared much too slow. The one business ajipeared as a 
tedious, arduous method of extracting nickels; the other a leisurely, 
gentlemanly waiting for a shower of golden eagles. Then came the 
panic of 1893, and the great railroad strike. The latter, especially, 
proved disastrous. Mr. Zumwalt at this time had twenty thousand 
pounds of cheese on hand which he was unable to move. Much of 
this spoiled. The delay in getting the ])roduct converted into cash 
necessitated a stojjpage of payments to the farmers and caused them 
to become suspicious and uneasy and disinclined to continue deliver- 
ies. Then, markets were not good. Los Angeles produced nearly 
all it consumed. The result was that both enter] )rises were aban- 
doned. 

In 1898 W. B. Cart mill leased the Zumwalt and Visalia plants 
and ojjcrated them as skiimuing stations, and in 1901 Thompson and 
Futtrell connnenced in Tulare the o))eration of a creamery of small 
cajiacity. The skinuning stations were abandoned, but in li)0() Mr. 
Cartinill was instrumental in launching the Tulare Co-Operative 



138 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Creamery, the cai^acity of this in its first years of existence being 
about one thousand pounds per day. 

The entire growth of the industry dates from that time, only 
five or six years ago. Today tlie industry ranks as one of the most 
important in the county. The county ranks, according to the state 
dairy board, as tliird in the state. According to figures given out 
by the creameries, it ranks second. At any rate, there is an annual 
production of four million pounds of butter fat. A conservative 
estimate of the value of dairy products, including skimmed milk, is 
two million dollars per year. 

An idea of existing conditions is ol)taiued by quoting the Tulare 
Register of May, 1912 : ' ' The creamery disbursements here today were 
$97,191.26. The fifteenth of the month in this city is much like the 
regular monthly pay days in factory districts. * * * Business 
jammed at the local banks all through the day and it was simply a 
question of waiting one's turn at the windows of paying and receiving- 
tellers. 

"Nearly every horse-drawn vehicle wliich comes to this city 
will have the cream cans somewhere about it. Even autos are used 
to convey the cream and milk." 

Dairying has centered particularly about Tulare, which includes 
Tag-US, Paige and Swall's station; about Porterville, Woodville, Tip- 
ton and Poplar, all of which may be coml>ined as constituting one 
immense connected district; about Yisalia, including Farmersville 
and Goshen; about Dinuba, westerly and southerly to Traver. 

There are now within the county one thousand dair>nnen "vvith 
herds aggregating l)etween twenty and twenty-five thousand animals. 
The Holstein is the favorite breed, and the grade is constantly im- 
proving by reason of the importation of numbers of registered bulls. 

A factor of importance bearing on the relation of this industry 
to general prosperity is the fact that there are few large herds. In 
fact, there are only two in the county numbering as many as three 
hundred. The remainder range from five to two hundred. 

The moutlily creamery pay check has become a factor in busi- 
ness circles. It pays bills of all kinds promptly; it contributes to 
savings bank balances ; it steadies and enhances land values. 

The one thing that has rendered this extraordinary development 
possible and one of the causes for the belief that the industry is 
at present only in its infancy, is the phenomenal growth of the city 
of Los Angeles. And as this metropolis bids fair to maintain a 
healthy growth and as the towns of the- citrus district and of the 
oil fields are also rapidly growing, it appears that a widening and 
increasing demand assures to the industry a stable future. 

There are now eight creameries in the county, each provided 
with the best modern facilities, machinery and equipment. These, 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 139 

with their managers are: Tuhire Co-Operative, W. B. Cartmill; 
Dairj-men's Co-Operative, J. P. Murphy; Good Luck Creamery, J. 
W. brew, all of Tulare; the Visalia Creamery, W. B. Cartmill; 
Visalia Co-Operative Creamery, N. J. Beck; Sun Flower Dairy at 
Poplar, Eidgeway Bros.; Porterville Co-Operative Creamery, C. T. 
Brown; Tipton Co-Operative Creamery, J. H. Drew. 

DECIDUOUS FRUIT 

From its vineyards and orcliards of deciduous fruits Tulare 
county now annually receives about three million dollars. The de- 
veloiunent of this industry within the county presents peculiarities. 
Thus, at a time w^hen the vineyards of Sonoma and Napa counties, 
the orchards of Santa Clara, Vacaville, Suisuu and Ventura were 
in full bearing and producing profitable returns, here, one of the 
richest fields remained until comparatively recent years imknown 
and undeveloped. 

This neglect did not proceed so much from doubt as to the 
adajitability of the section for fruit growing as from the ignorance 
of the earlier inhabitants of the large profits in the business. Life- 
long farmers and stockmen did not readilv undertake a change. 
Then there was doubt of finding a market, in view of the exorbitant 
freight rates charged in early days. 

A]3]3areutly, the very first settlers, however, planted some fruit 
trees and vines. In 1859, the Delta speaks of having received some 
fine apricots from Mr. Goodale, also some apples of the Summer 
Queen variety that measured thirteen and one-half inches in cir- 
cumference. In another issue mention is made of a vineyard near 
town belonging to Dr. Matthews that was producing grapes "equal 
to those grown in Los Angeles." The doctor brought in a bunch 
weighing nine pounds. Horace Thomas also was bearer to the editor 
of a large cluster of grapes. Again, in the issue of August 7, 1867, 
the editor acknowledged the receipt from Rev. Mr. Edwards of some 
peaches of fine flavor that measured three inches in diameter and 
some lemon clings eleven and three-fourths inches in circumfei-ence. 
Mention, in the '60s, is also made of samples of wine made near 
Visalia, and on the assessment roll of 1860 there appeared one thou- 
sand gallons of wine on hand. 

Humble beginnings, truly, and containing no suggestion of the 
wonderful expansion that was to come. 

The first impetus to the growing of fruit commercially in Tuhire 
county was given by I. li. Thomas, since called the father of the 
industry. This gentleman, about 1880, i^lanted near Visalia a ten- 
acre orchard of peaches, pears, })lums, prunes, apricots and nectar- 
ines. Mr. Thomas was a "fruit man," a careful, intelligent observer, 
a member of the state board of horticulture, and very enthusiastic 



UO TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

about the adaptahilily of soil aud climate here for the growing 
of fruit. 

Mr. Tlionias exhibited specimens of his ])rodiicts at the meetings 
of tiie state Iward in San Francisco and they were regarded as 
phenomenal. The district was recognized as i)ossessing most favor- 
able qualifications. Mr. Thomas, however, met with difficulties in 
the disposition of his product. The fruit was sent to Los Angeles 
by express, the greatest care being exercised in ]iacking. Exorbitant 
charges absorbed the profits. However, Frank Briggs and Thomas 
Jacob, the latter an experienced fruit grower and nurseryman from 
San Jose, planted acreage orcliards which came into bearing in 1888. 

George A. and Charles F. Fleming, known as Fleming Bros., 
dried fruit packers and sjieculators of San Jose, noted the event 
of a new district's production, entered the field and in 1889 and 
1890, purchased the output for di'ving. The phenomenal yield of 
the new orcliards in the latter year, coupled with the high prices 
prevailing, started a boom for the industry which resulted in an 
almost universal desire to enter the game. The year 1890 wit- 
nessed a general planting of fruit trees all over the county. The 
Orosi colony of forty or fifty ten aud twenty-acre tracts was launched; 
near Tulare the Oakland colony, the Bishop colony, the Chicago 
ranch, the Oakdale colony, the Emma orchard and numerous others 
were set out; near Porterville, Dr. W. A. Witlock, Jim Bursell and 
others made plantings. 

In the district tributary to Visalia and Farmersville the most 
remarkable showing was made. The Fleming Brothers and J. K. 
Armsby inirchased four hundred acres, planting about one-half the 
first year; Pinkham & McKevitt, ^"acaville fresh fruit packers, with 
associates from that section, set out the Giant Oak and California 
Prune Company orchards, each of several hundred acres, ^'isalians 
organized the Evansdale, the Encina and the Visalia Fruit and Land 
Co. San Joseans formed the Mineral King Fruit Co. ; J. P. Morton 
and William Swall began planting on what is now known as Swall's. 
This furore extended to 1891, when A. C. Kuhn, fruit packer of San 
Jose, purchased about eleven hundred acres near Farmersville. all 
to be set in fruit. Exclusive of these orchards, each of which con- 
sisted of hundreds of acres, scores of smaller plautings were made 
in these- two years, so that in the Visalia district alone the acreage 
now amounted to some seven thousand acres. 

The main cause of this extraordinary planting rush, resembling 
a "stampede" to a mining camp, was the yield and return from the 
Jacobs' aud Briggs' orchards in 1889. Mr. Jacobs, from one hun- 
dred aud thirty-five four-year-old prune trees, received about $800 
net. the trees averaging four hundred pounds each and the fruit 
being sold for $35 per ton. At the Briggs orchard the old trees 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 141 

averaged ei.^lit hundred pounds and one tree, wliiHi was ])ieked in 
the presence of witnesses, who made affidavit to the fact, jjrotluced 
eleven hundred and two pounds. 

Precedin,i>- this excitement a few years there had been a general 
though quiet movement of vineyard planting, jiarticularly about 
Tulare and in the Diiuiba-Orosi district. 

The limits of this article forbid a detailed history of the ex- 
periences of these thousands of fruit and vine growers. Suffice to 
. say that before tlie present stable basis was attained, many lessons 
were learned by hard experience. It was found that orchards gen- 
erally did not ])roduce such i)henomenal early yields as the Briggs' 
and Jacobs' places; that some soils were not at all adapted to the 
culture; that periods of depression in the market, if occurring co- 
incident with a season of heavy yield and of small grade, eliminated 
profit entirely. In the district tributary to Yisalia, came, in 1906, 
the misfortune of a flood which practically destroyed thousands of 
acres of trees, especially those on peach root. Other lessons, too, 
the years have brought. 

It has been learned that Malaga and other table grapes in the 
Alta or Dinuba-Sultana-Orosi district ripen very early, reach an un- 
usual degree of perfection and connnand higher prices in the eastern 
market than those grown elsewhere. It has been found that cling 
peaches of all. varieties do exceptionally well and are in great de- 
mand at advanced prices by canners throughout the state. This was 
forecasted in 1895, when peaches from "\lsalia orchards took the 
gold medal at the Atlanta World's Exposition. Of this exhibit it 
may be stated that one orchard contributed three hundred peaches, 
no one weighing less than a pound. Jars were tilled with peaches 
weighing twenty-two and one-half ounces each. 

It has been found that the earliest and therefore the most profit- 
able district in the state for the production of fresh fruits destined 
for the eastern market lies in our elevated foothill section. The 
Redbanks orchard of five hundred acres, situated fifteen miles north- 
east of Yisalia on the Yisalia electric railway, produces peaches, 
plums, Thompson's seedless and Tokay grapes coincident with or 
earlier than any other. 

It has l)een found that in tlie Yisalia and in the Farmersville 
districts, French and R<)i)e de Sergeant prunes are of a grade and 
quality sujierior to any others in the San Joatpiin valley and on 
account of the early maturily and heavy yield are to be depended 
U])on for large average annual returns. 

A word now as to the growth of facilities and the jiresent status 
of the industiy. The first need felt by the new fruit i)roducing dis- 
trict was for a cannery. Enterprising Yisalians, under the leader- 
shi)) of Martin Rouse, succeeded in inducing the Sacramento Can- 



142 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

ning- and Drying Company to establish a plant here in 1895. This 
has since been taken over by the California Canners' Association, 
and made into one of the largest and best equipped jDlants in the 
state. A few years later, the Central California Canners' Company 
located in Visalia ; in 1910 local fruit growers built a cannery in 
Tulare, and in 1912 Hunt Brothers of HajTvards opened a factory 
in Exeter. Northern Tulare county growers found a ready market 
for canning fruits in Fresno. 

Similarly, in the handling of fresh and dried fruits and raisins. 
Located at Dinuba aud Visalia are now packing-houses for raisins 
and dried fruits second in facilities to uone; the leading greeu fruit 
shippers have receiving and forwarding accommodations at nearly 
every station on the railroad. 

For the Los Angeles market, which consumes about one hundred 
aud fifty carloads of Tulare county fruit, the Klein-Simpson com- 
pany have been especially active and make carload shipments from 
Dinuba, Sultana, Visalia, Exeter, Porterville and Tulare. 

The shipment of fresh fruit and grapes to the eastern markets 
may be roughly estimated at about eight hundred carloads, of which 
Visalia, Eedbanks aud Swall's contribute a little less than one-half 
and the northern or Alta district, including Dinuba, Sultana and 
Cutler, a little more than one-half. This large shipment from the 
Alta district has been entirely developed within the past eight years, 
as it was not until 1904 that carload lots were shipped from Dinuba. 
For several years prior to that time, N. W. Miller of Orosi. the 
pioneer in the industry, had been shipping small lots by local freight 
to Visalia, at which point cars were made up. 

In 1908 Frank Wilson and G. W. Wyllie, who were the only 
growers of table grapes near Dinuba, packed their Emperor grape.s 
at their ranches and forwarded the same to Fresno in quarter car 
lots. Until 1906 no grapes were shipped other than those produced 
on these two vineyards, although in 1905 a few Malagas were set 
out. 

In 1907 the Earl Fruit Company rented a house to be used for 
packiug purposes. Grapes were still the only fruit shipped, aud of 
these there were only a few cars of the early variety. The pack- 
iughouse was open for a period of four weeks only. It was not 
until 1908 that shipments of any voliune were made. Many new 
vineyards had then arrived at the bearing age. Prices for early 
Malagas were alluring, and many growers disposed of their frtxit 
in this way. Plums, peaches and Tokay grapes were added to 
the list. 

This, in outline, is the rapidly made early history of the 
deciduous fruit shipping industry in what is now its center in 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 143 

Tulare county. From tliis district shipments as follows were made 
in 1910 : From Diuuba and Monson, two hundred and eleven car- 
loads ; Cutler, sixty-one carloads ; Sultana, one hundred and forty 
carloads ; North Dinuba, seventeen carloads ; making a total of 
four hundred and twenty-nine carloads, having a value to the 
grower of over a quarter of a million dollars. 

In dried fruits, raisins easily lead in volume and value of 
shipments. A conservative estimate of the annual value of . the 
product is $750,000. There are two separate portions of the county 
in which the production of raisins heavily increases bank balances. 
These are the district from Dinuba to Yettem, and the section lying 
around Tulare and Paige. Connecting somewhat these two are 
numerous vineyards located near ' Traver, Goshen and Tagus. 

The prune belt of the county lies almost exclusively in the 
Visalia-Farmersville district, although Tulare and Porterville each 
furnish a considerable quota. The annual ]5rodnction is about 
five thousand tons, carrying a growers' return of about $450,000. 
The actual value for shipment, which would include cost of boxes, 
labor and packers' profits, would be much more. 

The production of apples is confined to the foothill region 
centering about Three Rivers and Springville. As transportation 
facilities improve the profitable enlargement of the area devoted 
to this culture may be made. 

Wine grapes may be said to be grown commercially only in the 
Alta district, where are located two large wineries. Small plants 
near Tulare and Visalia assist in sujiplying the public demand for 
liquid refreshment. 

THE WATERMELON 

Though apparently of minor importance, the industry of rais- 
ing watermelons in Tulare county has exerted such an effect on 
the development of lands into thriving vineyards and orchards 
that it is deserving of especial mention. This by reason of the 
fact that, affording as it does, quick, jirofitable returns, the fruit 
grower is easily enabled to make a living while awaiting the coming 
into bearing of his orchard or vineyard. 

The industry has been confined, on a commercial scale exclu- 
sively, to northern Tulare county. The Alta district has now be- 
come the largest watermelon shipping center in the state. The 
earliest melons are grown there and the highest prices realized. 
It all started ten years ago. In 1901 Mrs. J. E. Driver, a very 
bright, energetic business woman, set out forty acres. The venture 
was successful, and by 1905 interest in the growing of melons be- 
came general and large ]ilantings were made from then on. 

In 1908 the Dinul)a Melon Growers' Association was formed 
for the purpose of securing higher pi-ices through co-operative 



14-t TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

action iu marketing'. Tlie association was immediately successful 
and has remained so. 

The estimated acreage devoted to melons is twelve hundred, of 
which the association controls three-fifths. Shipments from the 
district commence the last week in Jime and continue well into 
August. 



CHAPTER XV 

THE RAILROAD DREA:\I 

In 1861 a mass meeting was held iu front of the courthouse for 
the purpose of considering the j^roject of building a road to San 
Simeon. The ])roposition was endorsed and William G. Morris, 
A. H. Mitchell, S. W. Beckham, Thomas Baker and E. Jacob were 
appointed a committee to view the route and solicit subscriptions. 

The board of supervisors also took up the matter aud appointed 
A. O. Thoms, H. Bostwick and A. J. Atwell to view the routes 
and estimate the probable cost. Altogether, eleven meu, including 
ex-Governor McDougal, went on this expedition. The Delta of 
the time saj's: "They will probably be gone from two to three 
weeks and have taken all the necessary provisions and refresh- 
ments for a trip of that sort." 

BitoiNG FOR THE RAILROAD 

A railroad meeting was held in Visalia on the 10th of Decem- 
ber for the )niri)ose of hearing the demands of the Central Pacific 
railroad. The meeting was addressed by J. Ross Brown and Wil- 
liam M. Stewart, senator from Nevada. Tulare county was asked 
to issue seven per cent twenty-year bonds as -a gift to the railroad 
company, at the ratio of $6,000 per mile, an aggregate of $.378,000. 
The road was to cross the county via Visalia, a distance of sixty- 
three miles, and it was agreed that the railroad should be taxed at 
the rate of $5,000 ])er mile. The average time in the receipt of 
merchandise from San Francisco was fifteen days and the rate $60 
per ton. The railroad was to do it in eight hours and at the rate 
of $10 per ton. Tliere were about three thousand tons of fi-eight 
leaving ^"isalia for the north and about five hundred coming in 
annually. On account of the increase in taxation and the reduc- 
tion iu freight it was figured that the bonds would pay for them- 
selves in seven years. 

Resolutions were adopted approving the project and iiledging 
assistance in the construction of the road. The committee was 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 145 

composed of Dr. W. A. Russell, A. J. Atwell, B. G. Parker, Hugh 
Hamilton, T. J. Sliackleford, F. W. Blake, Y. B. Stokes, A. H. 
Murray, Tipton Lindsey and J. B. Hockett. 

Popular sentiment was in favor of the issuance of houds, and 
the legislature passed a bill authorizing Tulare and other counties 
to issue bonds, but it was vetoed by Governor Haight. The people 
of Visalia were still confident that tlie road would pass through 
the town and speculation and prediction of the exceeding prosperity 
that would ensue were rife. Prices of property soared, and it 
was therefore a most crushing disappointment when the survey of 
1870 was made, which passed through Tulare county at a ]ioint 
about eight miles west of Visalia. 

Sliortly after the road reached Merced, in February, 1872, an- 
other effort was made to induce the railroad to pass through 
Visalia. A meeting was held and a connnittee consisting of Tip- 
ton Lindsey, R. E. Hyde, P]lias Jacob and T. L. B. Goodman were 
appointed to obtain the right of way to the route through Visalia. 
The rights of way were quickly olitained and the committee visited 
Sacramento, where they were told to await the action of Engineer 
Montague. On a subsequent visit to Sacramento in April, at which 
conference they were prepared to offer a large bonus, the committee 
were informed by Governor Stanford that he could conceive of no 
inducement that lay in their power to grant sufficient to influence 
a change in the route. This was by reason of the fact that the 
railroad was entitled by act of Congress to the alternate sections 
of unoccupied land lying on each side of the right of way. Should 
the route be changed to pass through A^isalia, in which neighbor- 
hood nearly all the lands were deeded possession, the railroad would 
be forced to relinquish this immense domain. 

Hyde and Jacob, the members of the committee attending the 
latter conference, telegraphed to Visalia: "Ephesians, chapter two, 
verse twelve." Reference to this disclosed: "Cut off from the 
Commonwealth of Israel." 

It now being an established fact that they were to be cut off 
from the main line, the people of ^'^isalia called a mass meeting 
on May It, 1872, to take measures of last resort. At this meeting, 
Tii)ton Lindsey presiding, S. C. Brown introduced the following 
resolution, which was adopted: "Resolved, That it is for the best 
intei-ests of the peo])le of Visalia to take steps looking to the con- 
struction of a branch railroad leading from the town to the main 
trunk of the San Joaquin Valley railroad at its nearest ])oint to 
this town." 

This was the inception of the Visalia and Goshen railroad, arti- 
cles of incor]>oration for which were filed May ID, 1874. The direc- 
tors were R. E. Hyde, S. A. Sheppard, E. Jacob, S. C. Brown, Tip- 



146 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

tou Liudsey, John Cutler aud Solomon Sweet. It was completed 
and put in operation in the following August, amidst great rejoic- 
ing. The first depot of this road was in the western part of the 
town, but subsequently moved to the present Southern Pacific depot. 
This road continued to operate, but upon the completion of the 
San Joaquin Valley railroad, now the Santa Fe, the company sold 
out to the Southern Pacific. The latter company then extended 
the road from Visalia to Exeter, making through traffic in 1898. 

THE VIS.\LIA AJfD TULAKE KAILEOAD 

The Yisalia and Tulare railroad was built by local capital in 
1888. at a cost of $130,000, and proved a gTeat convenience to the 
inhabitants of the two cities. It never proved profitable, however, 
and after the coming of the Santa Fe in 1897 its usefulness was 
over. In 1898 the rolling stock and rails were sold and the enter- 
prise abandoned. 

EAST SIDE KAILEOAD 

On December 5, 1887, the Southern Pacific, the successor to the 
Central Pacific in the San Joaquin valley, commenced what is 
locally known as the East Side Line. This road runs east from 
Fresno to Sanger, then southeasterly through Dinuba, Lindsay, 
Porterville and connects with the main line at Famosa. Work on 
the road was pushed forward rapidly and completed in November, 
1888. The road is about one hundred and four miles in length, of 
which sixty-eight are in Tulare county. It passes about eight miles 
eastwardly from Visalia and is the only road through the rich 
citrus country. 

THE COMIJTG OF THE SANTA FE 

In 1895, when the San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley 
railroad was organized and the project of building a road from the 
northern metropolis to Bakersfield was set forth, Visalia residents 
determined at once to put forth every effort to get upon the route. 

A mass meeting was held in the old engine house and S. Mitchell, 
Harry Levinson and William H. Hammond were appointed a com- 
mittee on finances and depot sites and Ben M. Maddox a committee 
of one to secure rights of way. Tulare city also eagerly undertook 
to help and agreed to secure rights of way from a point midway 
between A^isalia and Tulare south to the county line. 

About $12,000 was raised in Visalia, and with this sum, after 
a strenuous labor of over a year, all rights of way of a present 
probable value of a quarter of a million dollars were secured. 

Construction work was commenced in 1896 and on Admission 
Day, September 9, 1897, the road was completed to Visalia and a 
monster celebration in honor of the event was held. Excursion 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 147 

trains from Fresno, Hanford and other points, carrying upwards 
of two thousand people, came; residents from the most remote sec- 
tions of the county, as well as those from the near-by towns, crowded 
to see the first real railroad train enter Visalia. 

A significant coincidence of the occasion was that on that day 
the first Southern Pacific agent to set foot in Visalia also arrived. 
A short time previous the Visalia-Goshen railroad had been pur- 
chased by the Southern Pacific, and at once, upon the completion 
of the competing road, active efforts were made, through better- 
ments of service and equipment, to retain a share of the public's 
patronage, and in a very short time the Southern Pacific expressed 
itself as desirous of extending its road to Exeter to connect with 
its branch line. George W. Stewart and John F. Jordan were ap- 
pointed by the Visalia Board of Trade to assist in this matter. 
These gentlemen worked heartily, soon secured all rights of way 
and the road was built the following year. 

Soon after the Valley railroad passed into the hands of the 
Santa Fe. A singular fact in connection with the sale of the little 
railroad from Goshen to Visalia was that E. E. Hyde, its ]irincipal 
owner, believed that the coming of the Valley railroad would render 
his property practically valueless, and considered seriously otfering 
it for sale for $30,000, about one-fifth the sum he received from the 
Southern Pacific. There is no record, however, of the latter com- 
pany regretting the bargain. 

THE VISALIA ELECTRIC 

In 1906 the Visalia Electric railroad was commenced. A cor- 
poration with Mr. Crossett at the head was formed to build and 
operate an electric road from Visalia to Lemon Cove, by way of 
Exeter. The tracks of the Southern Pacific between Visalia and 
Exeter were used. From Exeter the line was extended along the 
foothills through some of the fine orange orchards, and in 1907 
reached Lemon Cove. The road has since been extended np the 
river to the property of the Ohio Lemon Company, and it is expected 
that it will soon be extended up the river to Three Rivers. Leaving 
the main line a short distance northeast of Lemon Cove, a branch 
was constructed, crossing the Kaweah river near McKay Point, and 
thence extending westerly to Redbanks, with a spur running north to 
AVoodlake. 

THE PORTERVILLE NORTH EASTERN 

In 1909 a company was formed with the avowed purpose of con- 
structing a railroad from Tulare City to the town of Spring-\'ille, by 
way of Woodville and Porterville. F. U. Nofziger was president of 
the company and ITolley & liolley of Visalia the engineers. 



148 TUr.AKE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

The peo]>l(' all along the way were anxious for such a road, and 
very little trouble was offered to the securing of the rights of way. 
Work was immediately connnenced on that jiortion of the project be- 
tween Porterville and S))ringville, called the Porterville North Eastern 
road, and it was puslied vigorously. On the 9th of September, 1911, 
the people of Springville celebrated the completion of the road. It 
was a great day for the little town. There were crowds of people 
from the otlier towns in the county, from Fresno and from Bakerstield. 
The road has been absorbed l)y the Southern Pacific, and is now run 
as a part of that system. 



CHAPTER XVI 
GREAT TRAIN ROBBERIES 

The first of a series of five train robberies occurred near Pixley, 
on the morning of February 22, 1889. As train No. 17 was leaving 
that place, two masked men climbed over the tender to the cab and 
ordered the engineer to stop the train at a point two miles distant 
from the station. There the engineer and fireman were compelled 
to dismount and were ]ilaced as shields, one in front of each robber, 
and marched to the express car. J. R. Kelly, the express messenger, 
was ordered to open the door, which he did, and one robber entered, 
the other keeping guard. 

Ed Bently, a deinity constable of Modesto, who was a passenger 
on the train, got off and proceeded forward out of curiosity and was 
shot and seriously wounded, the robbers firing between the fireman's 
legs. Another curious jiasseuger, Charles (iubert, was shot and 
killed. 

After securing their booty, the amount of which was never made 
public, the robbers returned the engineer and fireman to their jjosts 
and disapjieared. 

The railroad and express companies inunediatel.v offered rewards 
of $2000 each for the arrest and conviction of the robbers, and 
special trains with officers, men and horses, left Tulare and Bakers- 
field for the scene of the robbery. Trails were disclosed leading to 
the coast, but the robbers were not found. 

January 24, 1890, as the train was leaving Goshen about four 
a. m., the role of the Pixlev robbery was re-enacted. Five masked 
men again climbed to the engine from the tender, stopj^ed the train, 
marched engineer and fireman to the door of the exjiress car. The 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 149 

messenger was told not to shoot, as tlie engineer iind fireman were 
being lield as shields. As these train officers also urged eomplianee 
the messenger opened the door and one of the robbers entered and 
filled a sack with valuables. Then disinoiinting, they eomiielled Love- 
jo}', the fireman, to extinguish the headlight and carry the sack before 
them a few hundred yards down the track. In the meantime, a Dane 
named Christenseu, who was riding under the ])aggage ear, thinking 
that the train had been stopped on his account, got off, and was 
fatally shot. The robbers were supposed to iiave secured in the 
neighborhood of $20,000 this time. 

As before, they were followed by officers toward tlie west, l)ut 
not captured. 

THE D.\LTON GANG 

In the third instance, which occurred at Alila, as train No. 17 
was imlling out of that station at 7:50 a. m., on February 6, 1891, 
exactly similar tactics were pursued. 

The express messenger, a man named Jlaswell, was not so tract- 
able as the others had been. The engineer, J. P. Thoin, and the 
fireman, Q. S. Radcliffe, were marched to the express car door; the 
order to open was given, but not obeyed. Instead, Haswell 
extinguished his light and with a repeating rifle fired several shots 
through the door, one of which fatally wounded Radcliffe. The 
shots were returned by the robbers and a fusilade ensued. The 
contest frightened the bandits and they fled. Under-sheriff Bennett 
of Los Angeles, a passenger on the train, went forward to assist 
after the robliers had fled and was fired on by a thii'd man wlio was 
holding the horses. 

Sheriff Kay immediately i)roceeded from '\"isalia to the scene, 
and at daylight next morning found the trail of three horsemen, 
leading to the northwest, which, with a ])osse, he followed. No 
capture was then made, but in May following William and Grattan 
Dalton of San Luis Obispo county, were arrested and charged with 
the crime. In August, the trial of Grattan Dalton was held and he 
was found guilty, but in September, before receiving sentence, he, 
with two other prisoners. Beck and Smith, broke jail and escaped. 
William Dalton was tried in October and acquitted. 

In the meantime a fourth attempt at train robbery in the San 
Joaquin valley had been nuule. The Los Angeles express, on 
September .1, 1891, was stojiped by highwaymen wdien seven miles 
south of Modesto. Two masked men boarded the train at Ceres, 
compelled the engineer to ])ull out a mile and a half and stoj). 
Engineer Neff was forced to i)Ut out the headlight, get a jtick and 
attempt to open the express car door, which the messenger refused 
to do. 

10 



150 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Two bombs were then exploded uuder the car, the first one 
making a hole in the door through which the fireman was compelled 
to crawl and light a lamp. 

Leu Harris, a detective who was on the train, sneaked up to the 
robbers and fired four shots without eflfeot. lie was shot in the neck 
and dangerously wounded. More shooting ensued and the robbers, 
becoming frightened, left in the direction of the coast range. After 
this robbery, it was re]iorted in Visalia that it was done with a view 
to diverting the attention of officers so that the escape of Grattan 
Dalton could be effected, and at Sheriff Kay's request. Captain 
Byrnes, N. G. C, placed details of men from Company E to guard 
the jail from 3 p. m. until the following morning. 

William Dalton and Riley Dean were arrested for this crime on 
the Sunday following, being found in a ranch house near Traver, but 
the case was dismissed for lack of evidence. 

Before relating the particulars of the fifth and last robbery, 
which occurred at Collis in August of the following year, it will be 
well to finish the history of the Dalton brothers, who at this time 
were supposed to be the only participants in the whole series of 
robberies. 

The prisoner Beck, a month or so after his escape in company 
with Grattan Dalton, was trailed by Sheriff Kay to the state of 
Washington, and there captured. On his promising information 
leading to the capture of Dalton he was granted immunity, providing 
such information proved to be reliable. It was ascertained that 
Dalton had never left the vicinity; that he ranged on Kings river 
and that a number of people were protecting him and supplying 
him with food. 

On the 24th of December, Kay, with Deputy Sheriffs Wilty and 
Hockett, Fred Hall, Cal Burland," Ed McCardie, Sheriff Hensley of 
Fresno and his men, discovered the camp of Dalton and Dean on the 
upper reaches of Kings river. Dean was captured and shots were 
exchanged with Dalton, who escaped on a horse which he forced a 
farmer to furnish him. Grattan Dalton was never captured. 

THE COLLIS KOBBEEY 

The Southern Pacific train, due to arrive in Fresno at 12 :10 
a. m., was held up by four robbers near Collis shortly before mid- 
night of August 3, 1892. 

The robbers mounted the tender of the engine and, covering the 
engineer and fireman with arms, compelled a stop. A stick of 
d\Tiamite was placed on the piston rod and exploded. The engineer 
jumped and ran, making his escape, but the fireman was held by 
the robbers, who marched back by the side of the train, firing to 
intimidate passengers. When the express car was reached, a stick 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 151 

of giant powder was placed on the sill of the door, and in ex]ilodino:, 
wrecked the car, breaking three doors, blowing a hole in the roof, 
and scattering the contents in every direction. 

The messenger, George D. Roberts, was lying on the floor, rifle 
in hand. The shock of the explosion threw him across the car, dis- 
located his shoulder and rendered him senseless for a few moments. 
As soon as Roberts recovered his faculties he stuck his hands through 
the open door to announce that he gave up. The robbers went into 
the car and compelled him to open the safe. Three bags of coin con 
taining between $10,000 and $15,000 were taken. 

THE EVANS .\XD SONTAG TRAGEDIES 

On August 4th Chris Evans appeared in Visalia after a consider- 
able absence, stating that he had just returned from the mountains. 
George Sontag also reajspeared, stating that he had just returned from 
the east. 

These were suspected by the railroad detectives and George 
Sontag was placed under arrest, and Deputy Sheriff George Witty 
and Detective Will Smith went to the Evans house for Evans and 
John Sontag. Smith entered the door and faced a double barreled 
shotgun in the hands of Evans, another gun being handy for the use 
of Sontag. Unable to draw his revolver on account of his coat being- 
buttoned. Smith fled, as did Witty, Sontag giving chase to the one and 
Evans to the other. In their flight they were forced to leave the 
sheritf 's team and rig. Smith was slightly wounded in the back and 
hands, but managed to get to town unaided. Witty was more unfor- 
tunate, receiving some forty shot wounds and a pistol bullet which 
passed through his body, and almost proved fatal. Similar material 
to that of which the masks were made was found at the Evans home. 

Sontag and Evans drove off in the sheriff's vehicle, but returned 
early the next morning. The house was surrounded by a party con- 
sisting of former Sheriff D. G. Overall, Oscar Beaver, W. H. Fox, 
constable Charley Hall of Lucerne, detective Thatcher and sheriif 
Cunningham of San Joaquin county. About one o'clock, Evans and 
Sontag were seen in the barn harnessing the horses and were ordered 
to stop by Beaver, who fired two shots, one of which disabled a horse. 
The bandits returned the fire and Beaver fell, mortally wounded. In 
the excitement which ensued the robbers effected their escape on 
foot, walking twelve miles to the Hai'vey Ward place, where they 
procured a cart and team, and made their way to the mountains by 
way of Badger. 

The result of the posse's efforts were criticised and ridiculed by 
the press generally. Posses followed the trail and on September 
14, 1892, the bandits were located at Sampson's flat in a log house. 
As the posse approached the house a volley was fired from the inside 



I'r2 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

which killed A'ictor C. Wilson of El Paso, aud Audy McGinuis of 
Modesto, and .slightly wounded A I Witty. 

Not until the following spring were the robbers and murderers 
again seen by oIKeers, although many attempts were made to track 
them down. On j\i)ril 19, 1893, Sheriff Kay received information 
that Evans and Sontag would pay a visit to Visalia that evening. 
A posse consisting of the sherifT, E. A. Gilliam, John Broder, Ed 
McVeagh, Morgan Haird, J. P. Carroll and E. J. trudge, sun-ounded 
the house early in the evening, and about eleven o'clock they heard 
the barn doors o])en and discerned the meu attempting to escape. 
Kay, Gilliam and l^roder fired, Imt without effect. The cordon around 
the house proved ineffectual and for some time the bandits were not 
again seen. 

On May 26, 1893, deputy United States Marshal Black, standing 
at the door of his cabin near Badger, was shot in the leg and hand, 
and identified his assailant as Evans. 

Not until June 11, 1893, were tlie outlaws again located. A posse 
composed of United States Marshal (reorge E. Gard, P. E. Jackson, 
Hi Eapelje and Tom Burns had. while hot on the trail, taken up quar- 
ters in a deserted cabin at Stone Corral. The robbers were seen 
approaching and the posse stationed themselves outside. In the battle 
that ensued both Sontag and Evans were shot, the former fatally. 
Evans again escaped, luit was soon after found at the home of E. H. 
Perkins, and placed under arrest. Sontag died within about three 
weeks after the Stone Corral fight, Evans' trial was held in Fresno 
in November and December. He was found guilty of murder in the 
first degree and sentenced to life imprisonment. Within two weeks, 
however, he escaped from the Fresno jail, being assisted by a man 
named Ed Morrell. After getting out of jail, the pair held up a boy 
with a horse and cart, took it, aud successfully eluding the guards, 
which were immediately stationed on the roads leading out of town, 
succeeded in again getting into the moimtain country. This esca])e 
was hailed with great glee in Visalia because the Visalia officers had 
been severely rated for inefficiency in the Fresno papers. 

A period of several months ensued, most of which was consumed 
by the officers in following false clues. Evans terrorized the flunie 
men in the hills, aud the sheej) herders, threatening them with death 
if they revealed his whereabouts. 

On Fe])ruary 13, 1894, Sheriff Scott of Fresno county, and ])osse, 
came upon Evans' and Morrell 's camp in Eshom valley. Three shots 
were tired ineffectually, the bandits escaping hurriedly, leaving much 
ammunition and camp equipment, 

Evans wrote several letters to friends in Visalia, and on March 
7th, visited John March, who resided near Orosi, fourteen miles from 
Visalia. As far as the officers of the law were concerned, however, all 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 153 

trace of the baudits was lost after the exchange of shots witli Sheriff 
Scott's posse, until the following year. The mountain settlers all 
denied seeing or hearing anything of the outlaws. 

After these exploits, wliicii constituted one of the most s))e('tacu- 
lar criminal careers in the history of the county, it seems strange that 
Evans should have submitted tamely at the last, but he did. 

On Saturday, May IS, 1894, the ])andits came to Visalia, and on 
Monday the olhcers learned of their presence, and a posse, including 
Sheriff Kay, United States Marshal Gard, deputy sheriffs Witty and 
Robert Broder, night watclunan Byrd and constable English, sur- 
rounded the house. The news brought crowds to the vicinity who 
watched behind houses and barns at as near range as they dared to 
get. 

A young man named Beeson offered to take a note to Evans for 
twenty-five cents. He was given $1 and sent in, but did not return. 
At 10 a. m., an eight-year-old son of Evans came out of the house 
with a note to Sheriff Kay, which read : 

"Sheriff Kay — Come to the house without guns and you will not 
be harmed. I want to talk with you. Chris Evans." 

Kay, replying, recpiested Evans to come out and give himself up, in 
answer to which he received the following: 

"Sheriff Kay — Send the crowd away and bring Will Hall with you 
to the gate and then we will talk. I will not harm you. You are the 
sheriff of the county, and I am willing to make terms with you, but 
with no one else. I will stej) out on the porch when you come to the 
gate. Chris Evans." 

The crowd had not shown any inclination towards violeiu-e, but 
apparently the bandits were more afraid of it than of the officers. 
Accordingly, the crowd was persuaded to move away and Kay and 
Hall met Evans and Morrell on the ]iorch and shook hands with them 
and then placed Iioth under arrest. 

Young Beeson related that when he knocked at the door he was 
covered with guns and told to come inside, where he was searched. 
No wea])()ns were found on him, luit he was regarded as a spy and 
told to sit down and keep his mouth shut. 

By the next evening, when Sheriff Scott took Evans back to 
Fresno, so many threats of lynching had been exjn'essed that it was 
decided not to take the risk of waiting until midnight for the train, 
but to ]iroceed l)v team. When news of the departure of the officers 
with the prisoner became known a crowd of determined men, con- 
tained in twelve or fifteen livery rigs, started in pursuit with the in- 
tention of lynching Evans. At (joshen they learned that the officers 
had taken another road and were jiractically beyond ]>ui'suit, so the 
chase was abandoned. 

Evans was sentenct'd to life imprisonment at Eolsom and served 



154 TULARE AXD KIXGS COUNTIES 

seventeen years and two mouths, being released on parole, Mav 1, 
1911. 

Morrell also received a life sentence Init was pardoned after serv- 
ing fifteen years. 



CHAPTER XVII. 
CHURCHES. SCHOOLS, POPULATIOX 

The early settlers in Tnlare county ever made the establish- 
ment of schools aud the organization of churches keep even pace 
with the forming of settlements. If a full history of the churches 
in Visalia could be written it would show a long line of suffering 
heroes; little comedy but much tragedy. There is a pathos about 
the lives of the pioneer preachers that is wanting in later times. 
The pastor of the city church, who devotes his week days to study 
in his library, with recreation in the garden, and social intercourse 
with his parishioners, can little appreciate the exalted self denial 
and often severe suffering that generally accompanied the circuit 
riders. Surely a person, to meet the exigencies of a pioneer 
IJreacher, with conditions as they were in Tulare county in the 
'50s or even '60s, must be ablaze with a Pauline passion for souls. 

It is with a feeling akin to reverence that one calls up the 
visions of pioneer days, and the keenest interest is aroused by the 
pioneer and his weal. This is especially true wlien considered 
along with the struggles and victories of the early churches. The 
days of the circuit rider, picturesque in his missionary zeal, have 
passed away, but they have left an afterglow that fills the heart 
with thankfulness and devotion. 

THE SOUTH METHODIST 

Tlie first church in the county was the Methodist Episcopal 
South. In 1852, when Visalia consisted of undignified shacks and 
magnificent distances, before it was even selected as a county seat. 
a congregation of this faith was organized here. 

Rev. O. P. Fisher, the presiding elder of the Pacific Congress, 
and the Rev. M. Christianson took charge of the congregation and 
held services as opportunity presented itself. The first house of 
worship, however, was not constructed until 1857. James Persian, 
a leading member and himself one of the largest donors, undertook 
the task and a snuill brick church was erected on Church street, 
near Acequia, about where the telephone exchange is now situated. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 155 

At that time the Rev. E. B. Lockley was pastor in diarge and the 
membership was tifteen souls. 

Tlie present church building, on the corner of Court and 
School streets, was erected in 1872, and enlarged and improved 
in 1905- '06, and a new parsonage built in 1911. 

There have been twenty-four pastors in charge of the flock 
here since the organization. The present membershi]i is about one 
hundred and fifty. Rev. W. J. Fenton took charge in 1911, and 
under his care all l)i;ni('lies of the work are progressing. 

THE BAPTIST CHUECH 

The Baptist church has had a varied experience in Visalia. 
There was a small congregation in the '50s that held services in 
the oak-grove west of the schoolhouse, and later, .iointly with the 
South Methodists, occupied the first church building erected in 
Visalia. 

The Rev. James A. Webb, the "Bible Poet" as he called him- 
self, occupied the pulpit at the times when services were held. 
This eccentric individual was engaged in, and it is said, finished, 
the translation into verse of the entire Scriptures. 

Not until the early '70s was a building erected. This, located 
on Main street between Court and Locust, was later destroyed by 
fire and the congregation disbanded. 

In 1907 the Rev. E. M. Bliss came to Visalia as a missionary 
and in March of that year succeeded in organizing a congregation 
with twenty-one charter members. The congregation rented Good 
Templars Hall and there held services until the completion of the 
present commodious and attractive building. This is an impos- 
ing structure of concrete blocks, on the corner of Garden street 
and Mineral King avenue. The north transept has two stories. 
The cornerstone of this building was laid April 18, 1910, and the 
dedicatory services held February 1, 1911. Rev. J. M. Couley 
preached the sermon at the laying of the cornerstone and at the 
dedication. The Rev. Robert J. Burdette of the Temple Baptist 
church at Los Angeles assisted at the dedication. The membershiji 
has increased ra])idly and now numbers about ninety. 

SUNDAY SCHOOLS 

About the time of the founding of the first church in Visalia 
came the organization of a Sunday school. All the church people 
united in maintaining a Union Sunday school. In its issue of 
December 11, 18(5.3, the Delta said this school was in a flourishing 
condition with about one hundred children in attendance. There 
were at the time only eighty children in the day schools. A little 
later a school was maiutniiicd by each denomination s(>i)aiately. 



156 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

THE PKESBYTERIAX CHURCH 

On Deceiuber 9, 18f)6, a liaml of fourteen men and women 
organized a Pres1)yterian olrarcli in Visalia. This was of tlie Old 
School order. Rev. William Edwards was in charge, and the con- 
gregation met in the small building on the corner of Church and 
Willow streets. Later this building was destroyed by fire and, tlie 
membership being small, the congregation disbanded. 

The Cumberland Presljyterian people had become so strong 
that, under the pastorate of the Rev. Mr. Smith, they organized 
a church in 1878. with a following of about sixty. They ])urchased 
the property of the Baptists, consisting of the lot on the corner 
of Main and Locust streets and the building thereon. An oppor- 
tunity presented and the property was sold and two lots on the 
corner of Oak and Locust streets purchased. The building was 
moved and is still used. This proi)erty was purchased by the Cum- 
berland Presbyterian Church, incorporated. But the decision of 
the churches at Decatur, 111., in May, 1906, announcing the union 
of the two branches of the Presbyterians, has caused trouble in 
the congregation. Some hold that the title should be in the Pres- 
byterian Church and others that it still remains in the Cumberland. 
The former have possession, and a few of the Cumberland brethren 
are meeting in a rented hall. The others have arranged to erect 
a tine new building of concrete blocks, and the congregation, under 
the leadership of Rev. C. H. Reyburn, is growing. 

THE LUTHER.^NS 

The Lutheran Cluuch organized a congregation in Visalia in 
1907, under the care of "William Grunow, pastor. A commodious 
church building was erected on South Court street. About a year 
later a parochial school was opened with about forty pupils. 

THE EPISC()P.\L CHURCH 

The Episcopal church is one of recent date in Visalia. Previous 
to 1880 occasional services were held as circumstances ])ermitted. 
Revs. W. H. Hill, Powell, and D. O. Kelley, were the principal mis- 
sionaries that conducted these infrequent services. In May. 18S0, 
the Mission St. John was organized for the entire county, and 
comprised the towns of Visalia, Tulare City, Hanford and Lemoore. 
The Mission was imder the charge of Rev. D. 0. Kelley, with 
headquarters in Hanford. On Feliruary 9, 1887, the Mission of St. 
Pan! was organized in Visalia. During the same year, under the 
care of Rev. C. S. Lindsley, a building was erected on a lot donated 
by Mr. Jacobs, on North" Church street. In 1898 the Rev. C. M. 
Westlake, the jiastor in charge, secured tlie advantageous corner of 
Encina avenue and Center streets. The old buildimj- was nu)ved 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 157 

to tlie new location. In ]!i()4, under tlie care of Rev. II. I'. Carroll, 
the rectory wa.s huilt and in IDOll and 1!)10 the church was enlarged 
and improved and tlie parish house built. The St. Paul's Mission, 
Visalia, and the St. John's Mission, Tulare, have been associated as 
one charge. To these was recently added St. John's Mission, Porter- 
ville. The church has a membership of about ninety. Nine priests 
have served the local church. 

THE CATHOIJC CHURCH 

The Catholic cliurcii existed for several years in Visalia before 
a building was erected. Rev. Father D. F. Dade was the priest who 
for many years cared for the flock. As early as 1860 he is rejiorted 
to have celebrated mass in the old courthouse. In the late summer of 
1861 he obtained the use of an old barn and opened a parochial school. 
In memory of the birthplace of the Savior, he named his school the 
Academy of the Nativity. On October 18, 1868, at the corner of 
Church and Race streets, he laid the cornerstone of the brick church 
now standing there, and dedicated it. Church of the Nativity. March 
28, 1909, the Rt. Rev. Thomas J. Conaty, of the diocese of Los 
Angeles, laid the foundation of the present imposing church building 
on the lot south of the old building. The erection of this fine 
structure of concrete blocks was due largely to the de\otion of the 
Rev. feather Foin. The church in Visalia has been ministered to by 
eleven priests. 

METHODIST EPISCOPAL 

The Methodist Episcopal church was among the tirst Protestant 
bodies to e.stablish themselves on the Pacific slope. August 15, 
1851, eleven i)reachers met in San Francisco and held the first 
Methodist Conference on this coast. Their field of labor was froTO 
Canada to Mexico. But it was not until 1858 that an organization 
was made in Visalia. The class was organized by John McKelvey, 
in charge of this circuit. W. N. Steuben and wife and Mrs. 
Lucinda Kenne.v were the first members. The congregation had no 
settled jJace of worship until 1H67, wlien, under the pastorate of 'J\ 
P. Williams, there was a building erected on the corner of Court 
and Willow streets. A Sunday school was organized in 1869 by 
D. K. Zumwalt. In 1902 C. A. Bunker was pastor and work was 
commenced on a new church Imilding. The building was not finished 
until the pastorate of Mr. Livingston, Mr. Bunker's successoi-. In 
November. 1908, the church, with A. L. Baker as pastor, celebrated 
its fiftieth anniversary, called the Golden Jubilee, in a week of special 
and approj)riate services, at which many of the previous pastors were 
present and assisted. 



158 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

CHRISTIAN CHURCH 

The Disciples of Christ were represented at an early date in 
Visalia. Some previous efforts had been made by them to form an 
organization, but nothing was accomplished until in August, 1857, 
when fourteen men of this faith under tlie leadership of William 
Higgens, met and organized the First Christian Church in Yisalia. 
They met under a shelter of willow boughs in the lot between Court 
and Locust and Center and Oak streets, west of the present residence 
of Mrs. S. C. Brown. For lack of chairs, trunks of trees were vised 
for seats. Of the fourteen charter members, C. P. Majors of near 
Visalia, is the only one on this side of the Great Divide. 

At the organization, "William Higgins was chosen minister and 
elder, and John K. Morris, elder, and "W. B. Owen and C. P. Majors 
deacons. The congregation made the shelter of willows the place 
of meeting till late in the fall of that year, and then used the school- 
house. For lack of a church bell. Elder Higgins improvised a cow's 
horn and by the sonorous blasts from this unique instrument, called 
the humble worshipers together. 

The congregation later met in various places, among which were 
the courthouse. Centennial hall. Good Templars' hall, the South 
Methodist church, the Presbyterian church, and the City Hall. An 
unfortunate controversy arose among the members over the use 
of the organ in the services, and for some time the ill feeling 
engendered by this controversy greatly retarded the growth of the 
congregation. After several years of rather acrimonious feelings, 
by the efforts of E. B. Ware, then state evangelist, the members 
"forgot it," got together, bought the lot on the northwest corner 
of Court and School streets and in 1890, dedicated the present tine 
building. 

Among the early ministers were : T. N. T\ incaid, Alex. Johnson. 
A. W. DeWitt, H. Tandy, J. E. Denton. Since the building was 
erected some of the ablest ministers in the state have been stationed 
here. Among these ministers were W. H. Martin, now of Southern 
California, Peter Colvin, of Santa Rosa, T. A. Boyer of Oakland, 
and J. A. Brown, in the evangelistic field. Fredei'ic Grimes took charge 
of the church in 1911, and has been a strong man in the Bible school 
and all departments of church work. Tlie Bible school, numl)ering 
nearly three hundred, is an enthusiastic one. 

THE TRAINING OF THE YOUNG 

In tracing the history of Tulare county, it is found that the 
people have ever been prompt in the matter of providing educational 
facilities for the children. The school and the church have attended 
the early pioneers. 

We of today provide our children with the best modern educa- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 159 

tional facilities by the simple exjiedient of readily votiii,s>' "yes" 
ou all projiositions for school l)onds. There was a time in Tulare 
county when, other problems of life far less involved than now, the 
solution of this question was one of "Teat difficulty. Within the 
hearts of the early iiioneers, howe\er, the determination was stroui^- 
to give to their offspring a greater measure of learning than they 
themselves had enjoyed, and it came al)out that in 1853 a school 
was established in Visalia. Remember that this was at the very time 
in which each settler, surging with ambition, was l)usy inaugurating 
his individual enterprise. One was building a sawmill, another a 
store, another a gristmill, others were sending afar to procure the 
seed for farming; some were guarding their stock; the first farrows 
were being turned. 

Remember, too, that in a county extending from Mariposa on the 
north to Los Angeles on the south and from Nevada on the east to 
the summit of the coast range in the west, there were but eigliteen 
children, between the ages of tive and seventeen. You can readily 
imagine how much these children were needed to help at home. 
But they started a school. There was no building yet, just a school, 
and thirteen pupils attended. 

In 185-1: the tirst school district, embracing the entire county, was 
organized, and the first sehoolhouse, made of rough boards set on 
end, was erected near the site of the present Tipton Lindsey grammar 
school in Visalia. 

The population of Tulare county increased by leaps in the next 
succeeding years, but it was largely transient, composed of the horde 
of miners flocking to the new gold fields of the Kern. The school 
census of 1860 exhibited a healthy, but of course, not a corresponding 
growth. By that year there had come to be five schools in the 
county, which cared for four hundred and sixty-five children, dis- 
tributed as follows: Visalia, two hundred and eighty; Klbow, one 
hundred and twenty-four; "WoodviJle, one hundred and fifty-two; 
Persian, eighty-five. 

The public school system was developing normally, keeping 
pace with the needs of the people, Imt it was deemed insufficient. 
The following notice about a projiosed seminary for Visalia a])i:)eared 
in the Delta of December .'>1, 1859, and shows that ])eoi)le then were 
thinking of higher education: 

"Seminary. A subscription is in circulation for the purpose 
of building a seminary near town on a lot donated for the purjiose 
by J. R. Keener. The subscrii)tion list we saw was liberally signed. 
Attached to about half a dozen names was the sum of $3,700. The 
proposition is to make it a joint stock company. Rev. R. W. Taylor, 
and a lady are to take chai'ge of the institution." 

In 1859 Rev. B. W. Taylor, of Los Angeles, arrived and broached 



160 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

a project for opeiiiii.s>' a private scliool, in wliich the higher brandies 
of learning should be taught. His pUm met with immediate favor 
and a joint stock e()ni])auy was formed to finance it. Henry Keener 
donated a lot, and subscriptions in an amount sufficient to erect and 
equip a large two-story building were soon secured. The building 
was erected in tlie southwestern part of town at the corner of Watson 
avenue and the Tulare road and the institution named The Visalia 
Select Seminary. For a time the Reverend Taylor and his wife 
were the only instructors, but later M. S. Merrill, of Los Angeles, 
was added to take charge of the newly created primary de]iartment. 

In 1S()1 Rev. Father Dade opened a private school called Tlie 
Academy of the Nativity. The title was suggested by the fact that 
the building which it occupied, located about where Visalia 's Catholic 
church now stands, was originally designed as a stable. Father 
Dade's scholarly attainments were such as to well (jualifv him for 
his ])osition. Modern hmguages and Latin were among the l>ranches 
taught, and the elements of a classical education, so highly esteemed 
in those days, was imparted. This school, though taught by a ])riest, 
was strictly non-sectarian, and its i^atrons, sending their children 
there solely on account of the educational facilities afforded, became 
numerous. The boys and girls were instructed separately, the 
reverend father tutoring the former and Miss Hattie Deming the 
latter. 

The establishment of these two schools at so early a day amidst 
a ijopulation so sparse, clearly indicates the progressive spirit of 
the early pioneers and exhibits anew the cro})ping forth of the 
cherished longing to i)lace their children on a higher intellectual 
plane than it had been the lot of the fathers and mothers to ascend. 
And Visalia became the educational center of the valley. From 
as far south as Tejou and as far north as the Merced river, students 
came, for ever>'where the idea was strong to secure for their children 
the best. 

Tlie seminary and the academy flourished for a number of years 
— in fact, until their usefulness was over, which came to pass from 
the betterment of the ]iublic schools and the establishment near the 
big centers of ])o|mhition of colleges, universities and normal schools 
of high order. 

Tulare's schools are now among the best in the state. There 
were at the close of I'Jll one hundreil and fourteen primary and 
grammar schools in the county, emi)loying two hundred and twenty- 
six teachers. There are also seven high schools in the county and 
three joint high schools, employing sixty-one teachers. There were 
in 1910-1!)! L (v'^45 pupils in the grammar and primary grades and 
892 in high schools. There were 523 graduates from the grammar 
grades and ninety-six fi'om the high schools. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 161 

POPULATION 

For a imml)er of years tlie population of Tulare couHty did uot 
increase very rapi<lly. When the county was ori>anized, in 185"J, the 
total white population was estimated at one hundred. r>y the census 
of 1860 it was s'iven as three thousand ; in 1870, 4,533 ; 1880, 11,281 ; 
18!)0, 24,574; Kings county was cut off in 1893, and still, the census 
for J910 gave old Tulare 35,543. The present population has lieen 
closely estimated at 47,500. The census figures for 1910 of some 
of the difPcreut cities and villages are given below. To arrive at 
their present population add from thirty to forty per cent: Angiola 
44, Auckland 22, Badger 13, Dinulia 970, Exeter 660. I^razier 29. 
Hot Springs 22, Kaweah 28, Lindsay 1814, Urosi 590, Pixley 64, Por- 
terville 2696, Tulare 2758, Visalia 4550, White River 94, Woodville, 
76, Farmersville 550. 

One thing was very noteworthy hy the last census, and tliat 
was the rapid increase of po))ulation of rural districts as compared 
with the incorporated towns. All showed a marked rate of increase, 
but the country's rate was much larger. It would seem that the' 
ci-y "back to the farm" is being heard. The whole county showed 
a rate of ninety-three ]ier cent, increase in ten years. 

PEOPEKTY VALUES 

The best index to the prosperity of a ])eople is the assessment 
roll. As that ebbs or flows, so will the prosperity of the citizens. 

The first assessment roll of Tulare county, in 1853, consisted 
of a single sheet of foolscap pai)er and there was not a single piece 
of real estate assessed. The property in the county consisted entirely 
of horses and cattle. That year, when the county treasurer went to 
Benicia to settle with the state, the state comptroller and the state 
treasurer had no knowledge that there was such a county as Tulare 
in exisence. However, the state officials accepted the small sum 
(al)()ut $75) that Tulare county tendered toward the support of the 
state government. 

The assessment roll of 1855 is a curious document. It contains 
three hundred and forty-two names, tliis including tliose to whom a 
])oll tax only was assessed. It totals $437,225. Three parcels only 
of real estate were included. These were Jones & Robedee, 320 
acres — .$640; San .\melia ranch, eleven leagues, $50,000; Iguacio Del 
Vallo, acreage not given, $100,000. 

S. C. Brown was rated at $550; .lolm Cutler at $960, and Ricliard 
Cliatten at $410. In the roll of 1858, Andrew G. Harrell's name 
appears; he possessed forty head of Spanish cattle and one horse, of 
a valuation of $1,040. 

The wealthiest residents of 1855, according to the assessment, 
outside of Mr. Del Vallo and the San Amelia ranch owners were: 



162 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Elisha Packwood. $23,735; Pemberton Bros., $14,075; S. A. Bishop, 
$21,875; Eeuben Matthews & Co., $10,070; Patterson & Hazeltou were 
given as worth $1,210. 

The assessment roll of 1860 showed the following: Acres of 
improved land, 20,313; nnmber of horses and mules, -4,24:5; number 
of cattle, 42,373; number of sheep, 16,521; number of swine, 32,546; 
bushels of wheat, 40,268; bushels of corn, 6,355; bushels of Irish 
potatoes, 4,067; bushels of sweet potatoes, 1,656; pounds of wool, 
16,900; pounds butter, 30,380; pounds cheese, 14,970; gallons of wine, 
1000; tons hay, 980; schools, five. Real estate valued at $372,8.35; 
machinery, $32,763; livestock, $1,212,381. Total debt of the county, 
$33,262.46. 

In 1880 the values had increased somewhat and the total assess- 
ment roll showed property values to be $6,411,378. In the next ten 
years property had taken a double somersault. The assessment roll 
showed for 1890, $21,740,817. In 1893, Kings county, with the rich 
towns of Hanford and Lemoore, was cut off from Tulare, yet the 
assessment roll for 1910 showed the people of Tulare still possessed 
$37,475,140 worth of projjerty listed by the assessor. Surely the 
people are to be felicitated. Each year sees an advance in the rate 
of increase. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 163 

CHAPTER XVIII 
TULARE'S OFFICERS 

For the nnniber of years since organization, Tulare lias had 
a long list of official servants. Yet there are few counties in any 
state that can point to a list with fewer unworthies and a larger 
number of honorable and devoted men. 

SUPERVISORS 

Under different statutes the board has consisted of five and 
again of three members, and sometimes the fully authorized number 
was not elected. The following have served, being either elected or 
appointed in the year set before their names. 

1853 — Loomis St. John, A. J. Lawrence, John Poole, Henry 
Burroughs, AVarren S. Matthews. 

1854— J. T. Pemberton, C. G. Sayles, Anson Hadley, W. S. 
Matthews, A. H. Murray. 

1855 — Anson Hadley, J. C. Reid, D. L. De Spain. 

1856 — James Persian, William Packard. 

1857— P. Goodhue, R. W. Coughran, J. C. Reid. 

1858— G. E. Long, A. A. Wingfield. 

1859— E. Van Valkenberg, J. C. McPherson. 

I860— William Camiibell, R. K. Nichols, H. W. Niles. 

1861— Pleasant Byrd. 

1863— A. M. Donelson, R. K. Nichols, Tipton Lindsey. 

1865— W. R. Jordan. 

1869— C. R. W^ingfield, D. Stong, James Barton. 

1871— W. E. Owen, C. R. Wingfield, James Barton. 

1873 — E. N. Baker, James Barton, Samuel Huntling, Edwin 
Giddings. 

1877 — J. H. Grimsley (succeeding Baker). 

1879 — J. H. Shore (succeeding Barton). 

1882— S..M. Gilliam, W. H. Hammond, J| W. C. Pogue, C. Tal- 
bot, S. E. Biddle. 

1884— T. E. Henderson, M. Premo, J. W. C. Po,gue, D. V. Robin- 
son, G. E. Shore. 

1886 — James Barton, J. W. Newport. 

1888— J. H. Woody. 

1890— James Barton, S. L. N. Ellis, J. H. Pox. 

1892— T. E. Henderson, T. B. Twaddle, S. M. Gilliam. 

1896— Robert Baker, T. B. Twaddle, J. W. Thomas. 

1898— D. V. Robinson, R. N. Clack. 

1900— R. W. McFarland, T. B. Twaddle, W. H. Moffett. 

1902- W. E. Hawkins, J. M. Martin. 



164 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

1904— R. ^y. IMfFailaiid, T. B. Twaddle. George Birkenliauer. 
1906— E. Tout, J. M. Maitiu. 
1908— A. C. Williams. 
1910— Robert Ilorliacli. 
1912— Fay Singletou. 

THE .JCUICIARY 

Under the old constitution the judicial system provided for dis- 
trict courts, the districts composed of a number of counties, and 
county courts. 

District Judges: In the organization of Tulare count}' it was 
attached to the fifth judicial district, which included all the San 
Joaquin and Tulare valleys and the Sierra Nevada south of Cala- 
veras county. Charles M. Cramer was district judge, holding court at 
Mariposa. 

In 1858 the thirteenth judicial district was created, which included 
Tulare, Fresno, Mariposa, Merced and Stanislaus counties. For this 
district the following were elected: Ethelbert Burke in 1859; A. M. 
Bondurant in 1863; Alexander During, appointed in 1865; A. C. 
Bradford in 1867, and re-elected; A. C. Campbell in 1875; AV. AV. 
Cross in 1877. 

County Judges : 1852, Walter H. Harvey ; 1853, John Cutler, 
1858, Robert C. Redd; 1859, William Boring." E. E. Calhoun was 
appointed May 9, 1860. In 1860 C. G. Sayle was elected ; 1863, Nathan 
Baker; 1867, S. J. Garrison, who resigned, and S. A. Shepjiard was 
appointed; 1873, John Clark, wlio served until the adoption of the 
new constitution when the office was mei'ged in the superior court. 

Superior Judges : W. W. Cross, 1879. and re-elected. The 
legislature of 1891 authorized a second superior judge, and Wheaton 
A. Grav was appointed. This act was repealed by the next legislature. 
W. A. Gray, 1892; W. B. Wallace, 1898, 1904. 1910. The legislature 
of 1910- '11 created a second department and J. A. Allen was a])iiointed 
by the governor in 1911. 

THE LAWMAKERS 

State Senators : At first Tulare county joined with Fresno in 
electing senators, but later the senatorial district was confined to 
Tulare, Kings and Kern counties. The following have served the 
countv, the date following the name being the date of election : James 
H. Wade, 1852; J. A. McNeil, 1854; Samnel A. Merritt, 1856; Thomas 
Baker, 1861; J. W. Freeman, 1863; Thomas Fowler, 1869; Tipton 
Lindsev, 1873; Chester Rowell, 1879; Patrick Reddy, 1882; John Roth, 
1886; George S. Berry, 1890; W. A. Sims. 1894; II. L. Pace, 1898; 
E. 0. Miller, 1906; E. O. Larkins, 1910. 

Assemblymen: In the assembly district Tulare and Inyo counties 
have for a long time l)een united. The following is a list of those 
elected to the assembly, the date being that of the election : John T. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 165 

Tivy, 185.5 ; Thomas Baker, 1854; Kol)ert R. Swan, 1855; (). K. Smith, 
1856; A. II. Mitchell, 1857; James M. Roane, 1858; Thomas M. Heston, 
1859; 0. K. Smith, 1860; Jas. C. Pemberton, 1861; J. W. Freeman, 
1862; Joseph C. Brown, 1863; E. W. Doss, 1869; John Bnrkhalter, 
1871; W. Caiifield, 1873; J. A. Patterson, 1875; W. S. Adams, 1877; 
A. B. Du Brutz, 1879; Rufus E. Arrick, 1880; Allen J. Atwell, 1882; 
E. L. De Witt, 1884; A. B. Butler, 1886; George S. Berrv, 1888; W. S. 
Cunningham, 1890; W. H. Alford, 1892; D. V. Robinson, 189-4; W. P. 
Boone, 1896-98; H. Levinson, 1900; A. M. Lumlev, 1902-04; P. W. 
Forbes, 1906; (I. W. Wylie, 1908-1910. 

SHIiRIFF 

William Dill, 1852; 0. K. Smith, 1853; W. G. Poiudexter, 1855; 
J. C. Reid, 1859; J. C. Pemberton, 1860; W. C. Owen, 1861; John 
Meadows, elected but did not serve; John Gill, 1864; Tilden Reid, 
1865; W. F. Thomas, 1867; A. H. Glasscock, 1869; Charles R. Wing- 
field, 1873; J. 1 1. Campbell, 1877; M. G. Wells, 1879; W. F. Martin, 
1882; Alfred Baalam, 1884; George A. Parker, 1886; D. G. Overall. 
1888; E. W. Kav, 1890; A. P. Merritt, 1894; B. B. Parker, 1898; 
W. W. Collins, 1902-06-10. 

DISTRICT ATTORNEY 

J. B. Hatch, 1852; D. W. C. French, 1853; S. C. Brown, 1856; 
Samuel W. Beckman, 1865; S. A. Sheppard, 1863; S. C. Brown, 1865; 
A. J. Atwell, 1867; R. C. Redd, 1869; A. J. Atwell, 1871; George 
S. Palmer. 1873; W. W. Cross, 1874; E. J. Edwards, 1877; Oregon 
Sanders, 1882; W. B. Wallace, 1884; C. G. Laml)erson, 1886; W. R. 
Jacobs, 1888; M. E. Power, 1890-92; F. B. Howard, 1894; J. A. Allen, 
1898; Dan. McFadjean, 1902-06; Frank Lamberson, 1910. 

.ASSESSOR 

Dr. Everett, 1852; J. B. Hatch, 18.53; C. G. Sayle, 1855; T. C. 
Haj's, 1859; R. B. Sayles, 1861; E. H. Dumble, 1863; A. H. Glass- 
cock, 1865; T. H. Hawkins, 1867; F. G. Jefferds, 1871; Seth Smith, 
1882; D. F. Coffee, 1890; J. F. Gibson, 1894; Arthur Crowlev, 1902; 
T. H. Blair, 1910. 

SURVEYOR 

J. T. Tivy, 1852; Early Lvons, 1853; George Dver, 1854; J. E. 
Scott, 1857. 

The election of surveyor was neglected at times, and the office 
temporarily filled by appointment by the supervisors, 0. K. Smith 
being appointed on several occasions. 

J. F. Lewis, 1865; J. M. Johnson, 1867; G. W. Smith, 1871; T. J. 
Vivian, 1875 ; J. M. Johnson, 1876 ; Seth Smith, 1877 ; Thomas Creigh- 
ton, 1882; John S. TTiion, 1886; A. T. Fowler, 1888; A. G. Patton, 
1892; D. L. Wishon, 1894; Seth Smith, 1898; Byron Lovelace, 1910. 

T.\X COLLECTOR 

This oflHce, until 18!)2, was held ex-officio bv the sheriff witli 



166 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

the exception of the term from 1877, wheu li. A. Keener was elected. 
Since then the following: J. S. Johnson, 1892; G. V. Eeed, 1898; J. 
W. Fewell. 1902. 

TEEASUEEK 

J. C. Frankenberger, 1852; Charles R. Wingfield, 1853; AV. G. 
Eiissell, 1854; Erwin Johnson, I860; John C. Eeid, 1861; T. T. Hath- 
away, 186.3; Paschal Bequette, 1865; J. E. Scott, 1867; Wiley Watson, 
1869; Pleasant Bvrd, 1871; John W. Crowlev. 1873; Philip Wagy. 
1877; H. A. Keener, 1879; W. W. Coughran, 1882; C. E. Wiugfield, 
1886; D. S. Lipscomb, 1888; J. W. Crowley. 1894; J. E. Denny. 1898; 
H. Newman, 1902. 

EECOEDEE 

A. B. Gordon, 1852; County Clerk ex-officio, 1853; Louis L. Be- 
quette, 1861; T. J. Shackleford, 1863; W. F. Thomas, 1871; J. E. 
Dennv, 1875; C. S. O'Bannon, 1877; J. E. Denny, 1882; W. F. Thomas, 
1884;" J. M. Johnson, 1888; C. E. Evans, 1890; J. E. Denny, 1892; Ira 
Chrisman. 1894; J. O. Thomas, 1898; Ira Chrisman, 1902. 

PUBLIC ADMINISTEATOE 

This office has usually been combined with that of coroner. In 
1854 L. Meadows held the office independently, as did W. G. Daven- 
port in 1861 and H. A. Bostwick in 1862. 

AUDITOR 

The clerk and recorder held this office ex-officio until 1877, when 
the following served as noted: W. L. Kirkland, 1877; J. F. Jordan, 
1879; Ben Parker, 1882; D. G. Overall, 1884; C. T. Buckman, 1886; W. 
W. Eea, 1892; E. M. Jetferds, 1894; T. H. Blair, 1898; Austin 
Foucht, 1910. 

SUPEEINTEXDENT OF SCHOOLS 

During several years the county clerk has been ex-officio super- 
intendent of schools. In 1855 W. G. Eussell was elected, after which 
the clerk tilled the office until 1861, when the following served: B. 
W. Tavlor, 1861; J. W. Williams, 1863; T. O. Ellis, 1865; M. S. Merril, 
1871; S. G. Creio-hton, 1873; E. P. Merril, 1875; W. J. Ellis, 1879; C. 
H. Murphv, 1882; S. A. Crookshank. 1890; J. S. McPhaill, 1894; S. A. 
Crookshaiik. 1898; C. J. Walker, 1902; J. E.Buckmau, 1910. 

CORONEE 

W. H. McMillen, 1852; I. N. Bell, 1853; S. T. Corley, 1856; H. C. 
Townsend. 1859; M. Baker, I860; J. D. P. Thompson. I860; AV. A. 
Eussell, 1863; J. E. Hamilton, 1865; Joseph Lively, 186*; D. L. 
Pickett, 1871; E. P. Martin, 1873; W. A. Eussell, 1875; L. D. Murphy, 
1877; L. M. Lovelace, 1879; T. W. Pendergrass, 1888; 0. S. Higgins, 
1890; T. A. Sheppard, 1892; J. C. McCabe, 1894; T. C. Carruthers. 
1898; E. E. Du Brutz, 1902, died in office; T. M. Dungan, 1904; filled 
vacancy; L. Locey, 1910. 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 167 

CHAPTEE XIX 
TULARE COUNTY TODAY 

Just a trifle over fifty years ai;o tlie srhoolhoy who knew iiit; 
lesson said, "Tulare county is bounded on the north by Mariposa 
county, on the east liy the state of Nevada, on tlie south l)y Santa 
Barbara county and on the west by the summit of the coast range of 
mountains." The schoolboy's father, well informed for his day, 
would have replied in answer to a query as to the county's resources 
and productions: "It's a derned good cattle country and mebbe, if 
what I hear about the feed in them mountains is so, it might be a 
blame good sheep country; and they've found gold up there and the's 
lots of good farming country along the creek bottoms down here." 

True and simple answers, these — how much more difficult today 
to render such! Tor now, although a vastly smaller area is embraced 
within the county, the continued discovery of marvels of nature, the 
finding of unexpected stores of wealth, the effects of man's assaults 
upon the fastnesses of the Sierra and of his energy and toil applied 
to the fertile diversified plain have made of it a task difficult and 
com[)licated in the extreme. 

When the boy and his father, fifty years ago, described the county 
and told us to what it was adapted they did not mention that down 
from those mountains came streams of such volume that the waters, 
spread over hundreds of thousands of acres of plain, would increase 
fertility enormously and render ]iossil)Ie a diversified culture of fruits 
and grains and forage. This they could know but vaguely. They 
did not tell us that beneath the parched plains and worthless hog- 
wallow land below the foothill slopes ran subterranean streams of 
ceaseless exhaustless flow, which tapjied and their waters spread on 
the surface would succor and bring to glorious maturity groves of 
orange and leinon and lime. This they did not know at all. 

Now could they foresee that season and soil and water distribu- 
tion would combine to cause certain portions of the county to become 
famous for the production of the earliest fruits and grapes of the 
season, that here the French prune and the cling peach, reaching 
early nraturity and producing extraordinary cro])s, would become 
wealth producing factors. Nor could they imagine the thousands 
upon thousands of acres that were to become perennially green with 
alfalfa, today supporting great herds of sleek dairy cattle and causing 
the county to rank almost first in butter production. 

And oh, how little of the splendors and the beauties and the 
awe-compelling wonders that were hidden in that lofty eastern moun- 
tain range! They said no word of Mt. Whitney, towering above all 



168 TULARE. AND KINGS COUNTIES 

other peaks witliiu the nation's boundaries; they did not tell of the 
immense groves, or rather forests, of giant sequoias, larger, older, 
than any other trees on earth. 

No tale was there of gem-like clusters of glacial lakes, of vast 
caverns from whose ceilings depended giisteuiug stalactites; naught 
was said of gorges and chasms, of tumbling cascades or of bright 
flower-strew meadows. 

Overlooked, too, as a factor of future wealth were the miles 
upon miles of unbroken forest of yellow pine, sugar pine and fir. 
And little thought was there of a day when the dashing, leaping, 
whirling waters of the Kaweah and the Tule would be led quietly 
through cemented conduits to points of vantage, whence they could 
be released in almost uncontrollable force to move the wheels of 
industry throughout the county. Yet these things have come to pass. 

And there was a day, that also just a little more than fifty years 
ago, when Indian George, or Captain George, "big Injun heap," ran 
as expressman, carrying letters and small packages from ^"isalia 
to Owens river, the trip occupying four days. It is a far cry from 
then to the daily visit of the mail carrier, a distant retrospect from 
then to the luxuriously appointed through trains that now whisk 
you to Los Angeles or San Francisco during a night. 

Some fifty years ago a freight team from Stockton came bringing 
twenty thousand pounds of goods. This enormous load aroused great 
interest. Today without comment train load lots of oranges leave 
the county daily throughout the season. And so we find that in every 
branch of endeavor giant strides have been made, and a partial record 
of the steps is found within these pages. 

A few of the events that have transpired within the county's 
boundaries within the past six decades are recorded here. It is well 
to take a rapid trip over the territory, view it as it exists today, and 
form a mental picture of its present condition. 

Tulare county, situated about midway between San Francisco 
and Los Angeles, at the head of the San Joaquin valley, is one of 
the largest in the state, having an area of 4935 square miles, or 
3,158,400 acres. It has for neighbors Fresno on the north, Kings on 
the west, Inyo on the east, and Kern on the south. 

Its topography, as may be seen by the outline map, is about 
one-half mountainous, the eastern boundary being the summit of the 
Sierras. Two large streams, the Kaweah and the Tule, each gathering 
its waters from an extensive watershed, debouch into the valley 
portion of the county and permit of a vast irrigating ditch system. 
As the sources of these streams lie at great elevations, the flow is 
high during the first of summer on account of the melting of the 
snow. The detritus from these streams has formed throughout the 
valley section a deep bed of alluvial soil varying somewhat in the 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 169 

admixture of sand lint always friable and productive. A lar.ne i)ortiou 
of this delta land is snhin-i.iiated to the extent that for the growth of 
alfalfa, gra^^e vines or fruit trees no surface irrigation is necessary. 

Back nearer the hills from this lowland belt the land is found 
less sandy; there is an admixture of clay, decomposed granite, in 
some places gravel. These soils range from a light red and very 
friable to a black dry bog, through red, black and yellowish clay 
formations. Lying in a strip near but not adjacent to the hills, a 
peculiar formation known as "hog wallow" hind exists. Hummocks, 
little hills of two or three feet in height, here cover the land. This 
latter soil, formerly held to be worthless, has been found highly 
fertile and is now being leveled and cultivated so that in a short time 
the sight of a "hog-wallow" Held will be a curiosity. 

Naturally, each type of soil has proven itself particularly adapted 
to certain cultures and the great variation in soils and elevations has 
produced a very great diversity of production. 

Before speaking further of these we will take a survey of towns, 
cities and railroads that have been built in consefjuence of them. 
Again referring to tlie map we find two almost parallel lines of 
railroad extending from north to south across the county. These 
are the main line of the Southern Pacific and the branch or loop line 
of the same company which extends from Fresno to Famosa. These 
two lines are connected by a cross line between Exeter and Goshen, 
which passes through Visalia and over which a number of the through 
trains run. The Santa Fe line enters the county near Dinuba and 
after paralleling the Southern Pacific a short distance cuts south 
across the county to Corcoran and thence southeasterly across the 
southwest corner of the county. 

Between Visalia and AVoodlake, passing through Lemon Cove, 
an electric line is in operation and between .Porterville and Spring- 
ville is a short Southern Pacific branch. The Big Four, an electric 
road to connect the towns of Visalia. Tulare, Woodville and Porter- 
ville, is in course of construction. 

Tlie present population is estimated to be about 47,500, this 
figure being based on the census of 1910, showing .■)5,440, taken in 
connection with the increase of election registrations since that time. 
A fact worthy of note in this connection is that in the decade 1900- 
1910, the increase in ))oi)ulation of Tulare county was 93.4 per cent. 

Visalia, the county seat, with a population of about (iOOO, is 
situated at the intersection of the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe lines. 

Tulare, southward about ten miles on the main line of the South- 
ern Pacific, and Porterville thirty miles southeast cm the l)ranch line 
of the Southern Pacilic, each having a population of about 3500. 

Dinuba, Exeter and Lindsay, with populations respectivelv of. 



170 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

1500, 1200 and 2500, are also situated on the east side brancli line. 
These are the six incorporated cities of the county. 

Dinuba, the most northerly, is the center of tlie raisin belt, 
which extends easterly throug-Ji Sultana and Orosi and southerly 
to Cutler and Yettem. This district also has demonstrated its peculiar 
adaptability to the growing of early and late grapes for the eastern 
markets, and for the ]iroduction of a general variety of deciduous 
fruits. Oranges also are jiroduced extensively, particularly near 
Orosi, and south and west of Dinuba one enters a section devoted to 
dairying. But as a whole, this entire district is a checkerboard of 
orchards and vineyards. These, all in small tracts, well-kept and 
generally well-provided with comfortable country homes, present a 
picture both beautiful and impressive of assured ])rosperity. This 
district is well and cheaply irrigated by the waters of Kings river, 
distributed through the canals of tbe Alta Irrigation District, which 
covers 130,000 acres. 

Proceeding southward one enters a belt of undeveloped land, 
contiguous to ]\rouson on the Southern Pacific branch line. A little 
dairying is practiced here, but in general this section has been neg- 
lected. Some leveling of "hog-wallow" land and deep cultivation 
and drainage would doubtless transform it. 

Passing on southward one comes into the rich diversified farming, 
fruit and dairying section tributary to Visalia. This, too, is the prune 
belt of the county. Ditches taken from the Kaweah and the St. Jolms 
rivers cover the entire district, which may be said in a general way 
to extend from Goshen on the west to a point some twelve or fifteen 
miles up the Kaweah river on the east and to include the territory 
within a radius of five to ten miles from the city. No oranges are 
grown in tliis district, no table grapes and very few raisins. All 
general farm products, such as hay, grain, corn, pumjikins, Egyjjtian 
corn and sugar beets, as well as peaches, pears and in-unes, thrive 
exceedingly and are grown in large cjuantities. This part of the 
former wooded belt of the county still retains numliers of fine sjieci- 
mens of natural oak trees and many groves, either in their original 
condition or merely thinned by the woodman's axe. In every direction 
the vista is bounded at a short distance by what appears to be an 
unbroken line of timber. On approach this merges into groups of 
oaks or single trees, perhaps far apart, or consists of the growth of 
Cottonwood and willows growing on the margin of stream or canal. 
Soft greens of many shades relieve the landscape no matter what be 
the season. Not only alfalfa, but natural grasses continuously ]5resent 
the colors of springtime. And in midsummer gayer hues, for every- 
where, by roadside, by fence line or ditch bank or in unplowed fields 
sunflowers flaunt their yellow blossoms. And the summer's heat 
■ striking this fallow moisture-soaked loam causes sucli a riotous growth 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 171 

of all kinds that a general uukenipt appearance is presented. Orchard 
alternates with wood lot and salt grass pasture with coi'n field and 
dairy farm. Many tracts of fertile land remain undeveloped. 

Yet this section contributes heavily in yearly revenue. Two 
creameries in ^"isalia handle about one-fourth of the cream output of 
the county; nearly all the jirunes, having an annual value of about 
half a million dollars, are produced ; there are canning peaches for 
two large factories, large (juantities of fresh and dried fruits are 
shipped; the beet sugar factory is located here and ex])orts of hay 
and live stock are constantly made. 

Pursuing our way still further south we enter the territory 
tributary to Tulare without perceiving any change in general charac- 
teristics of scene, soil and productions. The oak groves, the alter- 
nate farm and orchard continue. A change, however, has taken 
l^laee as we soon discover. We encounter fewer orchai-ds, alfalfa 
fields adjoin, making vast meadows. We find that we are in the 
center of one of the great dairy sections. Fruit growing, frequently 
in colony tracts, remains a feature, however, and vineyards of con- 
siderable acreage are noted. The dairy region here, besides taking 
in the territory contiguoiis to Tulare, Tagus and Swall's, joins with 
the Dinuba country by a narrow strip, passing through Goshen and 
widening at Traver. This on the north. Southerly and westerly it 
merges also with the Woodville and Poplar sections. 

These latter districts possess some of the richest alluvial soil 
•as yet undeveloped in the county, but so far, dairying, general farming 
and grain raising have been the only industries. Fruit growing, with 
every facility of the most favored sections available, has not lieen 
engaged in because of the lack of railroad accommodations. The 
advent of the Big Four will doubtless change this. 

From Tipton, on passing through Pixley and Earlimart to the 
county line, we find vast grain and hay fields, little alfalfa, few fruit 
trees, much land api)arently fertile, unplowed. Also we find lai'ge 
tracts being sul>divided, settlers in numbers building homes, water 
being pumped and alfalfa and orchards being planted. Only in 
recent years has it been discovered that very cheaply could the fertile 
lands in these vicinities be made to produce abundantly liy ])umi) 
irrigation. A very rapid increase in population seems assured. 

Westward now, towards the lake in the neighborhood of Cor- 
coran, Angiola and Alpaugh, entirely new characteristics confront 
us. We enter again a great alfalfa belt, not only supjilying its 
dairies with feed, but furnishing enormous quantities of hay for 
shipment. Great grain fields there are, producing extraordinary 
yields. Some natural swamjiy meadow land lies here. In ])laces, 
instead of irrigation, leveling and diainage are practiced. Artesian 
wells in many localities supplx water for irrigation and for stock. 



172 TULARE AND KINGS C( )1\\T1ES 

But we must tuni now and look at the country lying along tlic 
east side brancli railroad. Surprises most extraordinary here await 
us. So great a difference exists that we can scarcely believe that 
we are in the same county. Merged indeed the two separate regions 
are at Orosi, but as one proceeds southward through Exeter, or if 
he choose, first through Woodlake, Naranjo or Lemon Cove and 
then on and stojjs off at either Exeter, Lindsay, Strathmore or 
Porterville, a scene wholly strange greets the eye. 

Orange groves and yet again orange groves, one practically 
continuous stretch. Not even a fence divides them. The chain of 
foothills is their background, but it is a ramjjart u]) which they climb 
and into whose recesses all along the way they cluster. No canals or 
ditches here, no alfalfa, no green mats of salt grass pasture, no oaks 
nor cottonwoods. Parched and dry, hard and barren looking is the 
soil in the places unset to orchards. And yet, within them everywhere 
trickling in little furrows between the rows run streamlets of water, 
the moisture from them soaking and permeating the soil. 

The system of irrigation here is almost wholly that of pumps 
operated by electric motors, and while this belt lacks the natural 
beauty of the wooded lowland, it is fast coming to be the most pleas- 
ing and attractive to the eye. Avenues lined with palm or other 
ornamental trees lead to country homes surrounded by handsome 
lawns and exciuisite flower ])lots. 

From Porterville the district extends south through Terra Bella, 
Ducor and Richgrove to the county line. This portion, however, 
is of newer develo])ment and the i^rocess of converting grain ranches 
into orange groves is but now beginning. Thousands of acres of 
young orchards are set and thousands more have been imrchased 
for the purpose of planting to citrus fruits, but here and almost 
only here within the county remains enough land sown to grain to 
keep harvesters busy and fill warehouses with wheat. 

Eastward back of the orange belt extend thousands of acres of 
foothill grazing range, supporting vast herds. This region is wooded 
and springs furnishing stock water are numerous. Two gateways 
there are to the higher Sierras, viz: Three Rivers for the l\aweah 
watershed and Springville for the Tule river. 

In both of these communities apples of line quality are grown 
and orange groves reach to their gates. Beyond and between them 
the grazing belt extends for many miles, and still beyond, throughout 
the range of mountains are found extensive meadows and other 
feeding grounds which furnish pasture for many cattle during the 
summer months. 

At an elevation of about .3000 feet one enters a belt of pine 
timber. This, mixed with the Sequoia gigantea, and, as one reaches 
the higher altitudes, with fir and tamai-ack. extends throughout the 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 173 

county almost unbrokenly. Several sawmills are in operation with 
an annual cut of about tlu-ee million feet, but on acooiint of the lack 
of roads, most of this timber is inaccessible and will ])robabIy remain 
so for many years. 

On the way to the higher mountain regions one passes on both 
the rivers extensive works of electrical power companies. Dams, 
reservoirs, long high-j)erched flumes, lines of steel pipe down the 
mountain side, and the whir of immense dynamos are evidences of 
the enterprises l\v which the mountain torrent is harnessed and the 
river converted into a la1)oi('r of the tield. 

For these utilitarian ])urposes of ])roducing milling timber and 
electric energy, for furnishing feed for droves of cattle and for 
storing the snowfall of winter and returning it to the valley in 
time for need, the Sierra Nevada nu)untains are an incalculably 
valuable asset of Tulare county. 

The mountains also constitute a cool summer retreat and are 
frecjuented by throngs of health and pleasure seekers each year. 
Trout tishing in the mountain streams generally is excellent, the 
Kern lakes and the ui)per Kern rivers and their tributaries being 
especially famous in this respect. Hunting for deer and bear is 
good and the s|)ort has many devotees. 

The mountain scenery is of so marvelous a character as to give 
it a wide-spreading and rapidly increasing fame. For beauty and 
grandeur the canyon or gorge of the Kern river is comjiaraljle only 
to the Yosemite or to Kings river canyon. Throughout the higher 
Sierras the effects of volcanic and glacial action, of erosion, disin- 
tegration and other forces have caused formations strangely beautiful, 
impressively awesome, wierdly fantastic. Combining to charm and 
please are ferns and flowers, silent forests, lawn-like meadows, ]ilaeid 
lakes. Streams dro}) in roaring cascades or fall in. sheets of misty 
vapor. Th('y tinkle, or murnuir. or rhythmically roar. Snowy ]ieaks 
of .lagged outline mark the skyline. 

Many groves of the giant secpioia are foruid throughout the 
range at an elevation of between 5500 and 7500 feet, the largest 
being known as the (liant Foi'est. About 5000 of the trees are here 
located, among them being what so far as known is the largest tree 
in the world. Hot si)rings, caves, mineral springs, are other features 
of attraction. Wholly within the county lies the Sequoia National 
Park, containing seven townshii)s. The Tule river Indian reservation 
is located in the southerly mountain section. There are many peaks 
of thirteen thousand feet and over, several exceeding fourteen thou- 
sand feet, and crowning all, Mt. "Whitney, 14,502 feet above sea level. 



174 TULAEE AXD KINGS COUNTIES 

CHAPTER XX 

THE ORCxANIZATION OF KINGS (OrXTY 

Bij F. A. Dodge 

The creation and organization of KinQ,s county as a political 
division of the state was the accomplishment of the spirit of develop- 
ment and iiro.inrcss which lias evei- concjnered the wilderness and 
caused the deserts to vanish. 

Until the s]iring- of 1893 the territory which we are to consider 
was a i^art of Tulare county, and therefore the early history of 
settlement and development is a part of the history of that county 
and the reader will find in this volume an inleresting- and instructive 
accounting of those early days when men and women of small means 
but determined will, laid the foundation of what today is one of the 
most prosperous and enlightened agricultural divisions of beloved 
California. 

People who build an imiDerishable state have always com- 
menced at the foundation, and all enduring foundations ever yet 
constructed have been begun by a community bound together by that 
greatest common tie — Necessity. Those who today behold with 
admiring eye the broad vineyards, prolific orchards and expanding 
meadows of this central valley of California should have preserved 
in some historical form the story of the past that they and their 
children may appreciate the hardy, brave and self-sacrificing ones 
who grappled with the problems which confronted them in an isolated 
desert at a time when even Tulare county was no longer a child 
among the counties of the state; and along with that history it is 
right and proper that mention of those people, with some of their 
personal history, should be written, and this volume is intended to 
accomplish that end. In the department <levoted to Tulare county 
the author has dealt with what now is the county of Kings up to the 
date of its organization and what is to l)e chronicled here will there- 
fore relate to events of comi)aratively recent occurrence, for this 
county is among the youngest in the state. The efforts of its people, 
however, to secure their independence date back into the year 1886. 
At that time the center of population of the western portion of 
Tulare county was the country in the immediate vicinity of the then 
small towns of Hanford, Lemoore and Grangeville. This community 
had been made possible through the application of water to the soil 
for pur)ioses of irrigation. Long before the stirring times of 
the Mussel Slough tragedy recounted at lenglh in this work, the 
life-giving waters of Kings river had been taken out upon the dry 
plain, and the earliest demonstration of irrigation as practiced in 



TULARE AND KIXGS COUNTIES 175 

central California was made in the vicinity of Grangeville. From 
that time development was as vii\nd as was possible, considering the 
lack of finances possessed by those who bad located on the barren 
soil. The story of hardship, deprivation and suffering experienced 
by tlie early settlers, their struggle with land barons who sought to 
monopolize the great plains for cattle ranges during the short season 
when wild feed was abundant ; the fight with the railroad corporation, 
and finally the struggle for and the triumphant \ictory realized for 
indejiendent county government are all worthy of record; but the 
progress of the people during the past nineteen years is to foi-m the 
basis of this contribution. 

ORGANIZING FOR A COUNTY 

Successful agriculture, wherever irrigation had been practiced 
in the "Mussel Slough" country, was proclaimed by the early irriga- 
tionists to their friends beyond the Sierras. The letters written 
"))ack home" to be read and reread around the old firesides brought 
from the states of the Mississippi valley and from the Atlantic 
states many settlers. Californians by adoption who had settled in 
Yolo, Sacramento, San Joaquin and other counties to the north also 
were attracted hither by the stories told of the prolific soil and the 
opportunities offered in the rich country south of Kings river, drain 
farming was soon made companion to alfalfa, and stockraising was 
undertaken in a more domestic numner than that which pre\-ailed 
when the herdsman held sway and laid claim to all the ])lains his 
vaqneros could survey. Then the planting of the grajie and the 
deciduous fruits followed, each step demonstrating the adaiDtability 
of the soil and climate to diversified husbandry. All of this resulted 
in the western portion of Tulare county acquiring a more rapid 
settlement than those other districts where irrigation had not been 
introduced. This condition was the inspiration to the movement 
to organize a new county government, and in the fall of 1886, Dr. 
A. B. Butler, who was at that time a practicing physician located 
at the town of Grangeville, and a very pojiular gentleman, as well 
as one of the leading ]ihysicians of the district, was put forth as a 
candidate for member of the assembly from the district conqirising 
Tulare county. Butler was a Repul>lican, and the county was a 
Democratic stronghold. Bui Dr. Butler was also an astute politician 
and that portion of the county in which he lived was the Repulilican 
stronghold of the county. That his successful election to the 
Assembly of California at Sacramento meant the lieginning of a 
plan to form a new county either did not ai)pear on the surface, 
or if it did it was viewed with complacency by those who considered 
such a possibility unworthy of the least attention. Butler was elected, 
and there began the story of how Kings county came to be on the 
map of California. 



1 76 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Diniiiii- the session of the California lesiislatnre in February. 1887, 
Asseniblynian Butler introduced a bill to cut off a portion of western 
Tiilare county and add to it a portion of Fresno county south 
of the fourth standard parallel line. The movement immediately 
met with opposition and a strong lobby was set to work by Visalia 
and Tulare interests, and the county division measure failed. It 
was, however, the beginning- of a long campaign, and the editorial 
prophecy made by the Hanford Sentinel of February 17, 1887, that 
"The seed of county division has been planted which will in the 
course of events sprout a new county," came true. 

In the legislative campaign of 1888, W. S. Cunningham, a well- 
known citizen of Lemoore, and a Democrat, was elected assemblyman. 
On the strength of a desire for a new county the candidate received 
much hearty sii]>port from Republicans during his campaign. ^Nlr. 
Cunningham introduced a county division bill at the twenty-ninth 
session, but, it too, met with strong opposition from the mother 
county, and failed. The next legislative campaign saw the question 
of creating a new county thrust to the fore. Population had greatly 
increased, and the demand for facilities for the transaction of public 
Imsiness nearer the center of that population had received new 
impetus, and a Hanford citizen was agreed upon for assembhmian. 
Frank A. Blakeley, a Republican, and a man well known and po])ular, 
was the chosen candidate. He won the election, and immediately 
preparation was begun for the final fight. A strong committee 
composed of business men of all political faiths was formed in 
Hanford, and included citizens from Lemoore and Grangeville, and 
farmers. A bill was drafted by Dixon L. Phillips, an attorney of 
Hanford, and a conmiittee headed by such men as George X. 
Wendling, E. E. Bush, Richard Mills, Justin Jacobs, Frank L. Dodge, 
R. AV. Musgrave and others established tlie committee headquarters 
in Sacramento, and assisted Assembh^uan Blakeley in his fight. 

In the early struggles the name proiiosed for the new county 
was Lorrain, but that name was abandoned and Kings was ado])ted 
in its stead, as being more significant. The name Kings was well 
received and the county was thus christened after Kings river, the 
princijial source of the irrigation for the district, which stream was 
discovered in 1805 liy an exploring ex])edition and named Rio de TiOS 
Santos Reyes (The River of the Holy Kings). 

The Kings county division fight was regarded as the great 
struggle of the session of 1892-93. William H. Alford, a brilliant 
young attorney from Tulare county, and a Democrat, was assembly- 
man from the eastern part of Tulare county, while Stockton Berry, an 
influential landowner, was senator from the district, and both stood 
solidly opposed to division. At this session Fresno county had a 
similar contest on, and the effort to create the county of Madera 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 177 

from Fresno was made simultaueously, and succeeded. Riverside 
county was another of the new county movements at tliis identical 
session. Of course, the leaders who were interested in all of these 
fights sought to combine their forces, and succeeded in doing so. 
The contest was long-drawn, and mucli bitterness was engendered, 
but all the wounds have been long since healed with the salve of time 
and the admitted wisdom of jiermitting comnuinities possessing suf- 
ficient wealth and population to enjoy those measures of home rule 
wliich by right belongs to them. 

The Blakeley bill, after a turbulent, and at times almost lio])eless 
history, finally passed both houses. The vote in the assembly was 
forty-five ayes to twenty-seven noes, and in the senate it received 
twenty-four ayes to fifteen noes. The senate's action was taken on 
March 11, 1893. 

As originally created the county had an area of 1257 square miles 
and when organized in 1893 had an estimated population of 7325. 
The assessable acreage at that time was 427,281 acres. Ten years 
after organization the county had a bonded debt of only $32,000, 
and ten years later, or now, it has no bonded debt. The United 
States census of 1900 gave the population as 9871, and the thir- 
teenth census, 1910, gave it 16,230, and an assessed valuation of 
$14,283,622. By the addition of a strip of territory from Fresno 
county through the operation of the Webber bill passed by the 
legislature in 1908-9, the county today has a total area of 1375 
square miles or 118 square miles more than it originally possessed. 



178 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 



CHAPTER XXI 
LUCERNE VALLEY 

In the year 1886 Frank L. Dodge, a newspaper man from 
Iowa, arrived with his family in Hanford, ostensibly on a visit 
to brothers and sisters who had located near that town in the 
pioneer days. Mr. Dodge became enamoured of the country and 
there being at that time no newspaper published in Hanford, with 
his oldest brother, the late David Dodge, he founded the Hanford 
Weekly Se)ifiiiel. Like many other people from the East he had 
a distaste for the term "slough" as applied to a country, the 
name suggesting mire and miasma to one unacquainted with the 
term as applied to Mussel Slough which, it is known, is the name 
given to the natural channels which in early days were open and 
in flood times were flowing streams. Mr. Dodge sought for a more 
attractive name for this district and in his paper of April 21, 1887, 
gave Mussel Slough a new christening and called it Lucerne Valley, 
a name which stuck to it until the formation of Kings county. We 
quote from the article naming the district the following: "Nestled 
among the heights of the storied Alps, fanned by the breezes of 
Switzerland, is a favored spot, the name of which adorns the page 
of story and gladdens the minstrel's song. 'The Sweet Vale of 
Lucerne' is a canton containing 474 square miles, a beautiful country 
noted for its great production of fruit, stock, grain, and lucerne, or 
alfalfa clover. It has the Eiver Reuss, the placid Lucerne Lake 
and the never-fading Alps for prominent geographical features. 
In 1870, 'The Sweet Vale of Lucerne,' Switzerland, contained 132,338 
people. 

"This beautiful country of ours about Hanford witli its Kings 
river, its Sierra Nevada and Coast Range mountains, and its glit- 
tering Tulare Lake, with its superior fruits, stock, grain, alfalfa 
and climatic advantages is eminently worthy to be a namesake of 
that old, rich and venerable Lucerne of Europe. This has about 
the same area and the elements of greater possibilities. Had this, 
our district, the population of the Lucerne of Europe the spindles 
of manvifacture and the wheels of commerce would thrill the land 
with active life; the thorough cultivation which would be put upon 
the land would make it a lovely garden of vegetable luxury; homes 
would bloom amid floral bowers and fruited branches. 

"The Lucerne of California has all the possibilities that fancy 
may picture for an earthly dwelling place. Let our people awaken 
and hasten on the march of improvements — work to reach that 
grand development which should enrich, endear and exalt a country 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 179 

which kind Nature has so richly endowed with the elements of 
greatness. ' ' 

The suggestion made by the editor fell on fruitful soil and 
took root and grew into a sentiment which finally changed the 
name of the judicial township from Mussel Slough to Lucerne; and 
under a euphoneous and attractive name the glories of this produc- 
tive western country were heralded abroad, doing a share of the 
good work of development. 



CHAPTER XXII 
EARLY COUNTY POLITICS 

As a political organization Kings county dates from May 23, 
1893. The bill creating the county was signed by Governor H. H. 
Markham March 23, 1893, and the governor appointed a commis- 
sion for the purpose of carrying out the act. TMs commission was 
composed of the following named citizens of the now county: 
Samuel E. Biddle, E. E. Bush, William J. Newport, William Ogdeu 
and John H. Malone. Both Mr. Biddle and Mr. Newport had been 
members of the board of supervisors of Tulare county. 

This commission appeared before Dixon L. Phillips, a notary 
l)ublic. on April 3, 1893, and were sworn into office. They inmie- 
diately organized by electing S. E. Biddle chairman and by select- 
ing George X. Wendling secretary, then adjourned till the following 
day, Tuesday, Ajiril 4, when the commission met and accepted an 
offer from the Farmers and Merchants Bank for an office room free 
of rental in which to hold the meetings of the board. On April 5 
another meeting was held and the county was formed into five 
supervisoral districts, as follows: District No. 1, embracing the 
southwestern portion of the county with three voting precincts, viz: 
West End, Kings River and Lemoore; District No. 2, embracing 
the southern portion of the county with three voting precincts, viz.: 
Paddock, Lakeside and Dallas; District No. 3, embracing the north- 
eastern and eastern portion of the county, with three precincts, 
viz: Lucerne, Excelsior and Cross Creek; District No. 4, omliracing 
the northern and northwestern portion of the county with three 
precincts, viz: Armona, Grangeville and Lucerne; and District No. 
5, embracing the city of Hanford. 

THE FIEST ELECTION CALLED 

On the 18th day of April the county commission issued the first 
call for an election. This call embraced, besides the election of a 



180 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

full set of county officers, the vote upon the question of ratifying" 
the act of the legislature in creating the county, said measure re- 
quiring that the vote necessary to ratification must be two-thirds of 
the electors of the county voting in the affirmative. The call fixed 
the date of the election on May 23, 1893. 

PARTIES GOT INTO ACTION 

As there had been unity of action between the members of all 
political parties within the boundaries of the new proposed county 
in the effort to secure the county there was much harmonious spirit 
prevailing among the parties when it came to placing tickets before 
the people. The one great eft'ort to l)e made was to secure the 
county and toward that end the politicians worked in harmony 
yet with much zeal for their respective candidates. 

The first political conventions were held in Hanford on Wednes- 
day, April 19, 1893, the Republicans holding their gathering at 
Pythian llall, a framed structure on East Fifth street, which was 
subsequently burned and never rebuilt, and the Democrats convened 
in Baker's Hall, at that time the most popular lodge and society 
hall in the county, but long since abandoned for public meetings. 
The People's Party also held a convention and placed in nomination 
a few candidates. So enthusiastic were all jaarties in their desire to 
ratify the legislative act and secure the county, that committees 
were appointed by each convention for the purpose of conferring 
and securing the nomination of candidates that would lend the most 
strength to the cause of county formation. The results of the 
convention day were that the following nominations were made to 
be placed on the Australian form of ballot : For Sujierior Judge — 
Justin Jacobs, Republican; Dixon L. Phillips, Democrat. For Dis- 
trict Attorney — Cosmer B. Clark, People's Party; C. W. Talbot, 
Republican. For County Clerk — Francis Cunningham, Democrat ; 
Fl-ed R. McFee, Republican. For Sheriff— W. V.Buckner, Repub- 
lican; E. E. McKeuna, Democrat. For Tax Collector — Jesse Brown, 
Democrat; Frank J. Peacock, Republican. For Treasurer — Stiles 
McLaughlin, Republican; W. H. Slavin, Democrat. For Recorder — 
Louis Decker, Re])nblican. For Auditor — C. C. Farns^\*orth. Demo- 
crat. For Assessor — John Rourke, Democrat ; John Worswick, Re- 
publican. For Superintendent of Schools^ — A. P. Keran, Republican; 
C. A. McCourt, Democrat. For Surveyor — E. P. Irwin, Republican; 
Joseph Williams, Democrat. For Coroner — B. R. Clow, Democrat ; 
Charles W. Sullivan, Republican. 

These were the convention nominations, but the ticket was not 
entirely filled, leaving the way open for independent candidates 
and these were supplied as follows: For district attorney, M. L. 
Short and B. C. Miekle went on the ballot as independents, as did 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 181 

V. M. Frazer for recorder, C. "W. Clark for auditor, George W. 
Murray for auditor and A. S. Bryan for coroner. 

Supervisors were nominated from four districts. J. II. Fox, 
who was a member of the Tulare county board of supervisors at 
the time held over, and his residence being at Lemoore, which was 
in District No. 1, no nominations for supervisor were made in 
that district. 

The party nominations in the four remaining districts were: 
District No. 2 — For supervisor, Robert Doherty, Democrat; R. G. 
White, Republican, and Frank McClellan, People's Party. District 
No. 3 — For supervisor, George A. Dodge, Republican; J. G. Mackey, 
Democrat. District No. 4 — For supervisor, Horace Johnson, People's 
Party; W. A. Long, Republican. District No. 5— S. E. Biddle, 
Democrat; Frank J. Walker, Republican. 

The election resulted in the choice of a mixed set of county 
officers, politically, and the carrying of the cause of county creation 
by an overwhelming nuijority, the vote on the formation of the 
countv being 1824, of which 1412 were recorded as "Yes" and 
412 as "No." 

The first set of county officials elected in the county was as 
follows : Superior judge, Justin Jacobs ; county clerk, Francis Cun- 
ningham; sheriff, W. Y. Buckuer; tax collector, Frank J. Peacock; 
W. H. Slavin, treasurer; recorder, Frank M. Frazer; auditor, C. C. 
Farnsworth ; district attorney, M. L. Short ; assessor, John Rourke ; 
superintendent of schools, C. H. McCourt; coroner, B. R. Clow; public 
administrator, Mace Allen; surveyor, E. P. Irwin; supervisor, 1st dis- 
trict, J. H. Fox; supervisor, 2nd district, Fi'ank McClellan; supervisor, 
3rd district, J. G. Mackey; supervisor, 4tli district, W. x\. Long; super- 
visor, 5th district, S. E. Biddle. 

SETTING UP HOUSEKEEPING 

On Monday morning, May 9, 1893, tlie commissioners met and 
canvassed the returns of the election and declared the results. The 
official count gave the total number of votes as 1919, thus showing 
that there were 55 who failed to vote either for or against countj' 
division. 

Superior Judge Jacobs received liis conunission from the gov- 
ernor on May 31, and filed the same with the clerk of the county 
commission, Mr. Wendling. The supervisors-elect were given cer- 
tificates of election and were sworn into office, each member giving a 
bond of $5000. On June 1 the board of supervisors organized by 
electing J. IT. Fox, of Lemoore, chairman. The several county 
officers-elect appeared before the board and were sworn in on 
that day, and the machinery of government for the new county 
was in working order. 



182 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

XO COUNTY BUILDINGS 

Having- finally formed a new county and installed the officers, 
the next step was to secure office rooms for the transaction of 
business, until sucli time as county grounds could be purchased 
and buildings erected. The supervisors immediately set to work 
and in a short time had the several officials housed, although the 
limited number of vacant office Imildings in the county seat necessi- 
tated the scattering of the offices all al)0ut the city. The Hanford 
opera house block which had recently been completed at the corner 
of Irwin and Seventh streets, afforded room for several officials 
and their records, and on the second floor of that building the re- 
corder, auditor, surveyor, district attorney, county clerk, sujierior 
judge and supervisors were temporarily located. The Farmers 
and Merchants Bank gave accommodations for the tax collector and 
the treasurer; the assessor and superintendent of schools were 
located in a one-story brick structure on "West Seventh street. 
Later the sheriff's office and county jail were located on "West Sixth 
street to the west of the corner of Irwin, and the superior court 
and county clerk were given quarters on the second floor over the 
jail. 

"While the arrangements were far from convenient, the county 
business was carried on economically and well. A steel cage was 
purchased which answered for a jail for a number of years, and 
while some des])erate criminals were at times confined there, there 
was never a jail delivery even from that temporary structure. 

COUNTY WITHOUT FUNDS 

At the final meeting of the board of county commissioners just 
prior to turning over the affairs to the board of supervisors. Com- 
missioner J. H. Malone offered a resolution which was adopted 
and made of record, that the new county possessed a population of 
5900 souls, and that Kings county be declared a county of the 
Forty-third class, and when the su])ervisors took up their work 
they found themselves with that much of a county to legislate for, 
but there was not a cent in the treasury. The first matter, there- 
fore, to attend to was to provide the means for carrying on the 
county business, and the first act of the board of supervisors was 
to apply to Tulare county for that portion of the road and school 
funds belonging to the territory within the boundary of the new 
county, and it was resolved to demand from the old mother county 
such funds due Kings county on the 1st day of June, 1893, the 
amount being $14,655.58, and accejit that amount from Tulare, 
provided that the latter would stipulate an agreement that no suit 
to contest the legality of the Kings county election would be brought. 
This demand was met by Tulare county to the extent of $13,289.26, 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 183 

of whioh $l(),!»l!).l(i was from tlie road fund, and $2,370.10 from 
the school fund. With this small amoimt of ready money, Kings 
county began its own official career, and faced the ])romise made 
during the division cam]iaign to so conduct the affairs of the 
county that tlie tax rate under the new order of things would not 
exceed the tax rate which ha<l ])revailed when the new county was 
a part of Tulare. 

RATIFICATION 

On the 6th day of the following July the citizens of the county 
held a celel)ration in the city of Hanford at which the creation of 
the county was joyously ratified in conjunction with the celebration 
of the one hundred and seventeenth anniversary of the Independence 
of the United States. The pleasing feature of the celebration was 
the api)ea ranee as orator for the occasion of James 11. Wliite, a 
prominent citizen of Tulare county who refused to remonstrate 
against the formation of the new county. He was introduced by 
the Hon. F. A. Blakeley, the assemblyman who introduced and car- 
ried through the Kings County l)ill. Sheriff Buekner was the grand 
marshal, and conducted a memorable parade, there being many 
s])lendid floats displayed in commemoration of the independence of 
Nation and C^ounty. 

DISPUTING VALIDITY OF THE COUNTY 

As an outgrowth of the heated contest waged between the 
mother county and the people of the new county, the (juestion as to 
the validity of the act and the proceedings followed out in the 
creation and organization of Kings county arose. This question 
was settled by an opinion issued by Deputy Attorney General 
Oregon Sanders, ajjproved liy the Attorney General W. IT. H. Hart, 
on the l!)th day of June, 1893. In the opinion the State Department 
set forth at length that the three counties created during the legis- 
lative session of 1892-93, viz: Riverside, Madera and Kings, were 
legally formed, and the acts under which said counties were formed 
are constitutional. This set at rest for all time any question of the 
legal standing of those three counties. 

FIRST TAX RATE FIXED 

At the regular meeting of the supervisors held September 
25, 1893, the fixing of tlie tax rate for the fiscal year 1893-94 was 
ordered. This was the first action of the kind in the new county, 
and the rate was made as follows: State, fifty-nine cents and six 
mills, road eighteen cents, hospital five cents and county general 
forty-six cents and four mills, making a total rate of $1.45 on the 
$100 valuation. 



184 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 



COrXTY POLITICS IX SUBSEQUEXT YEARS 

lu the month of June, 1894, the several political parties con- 
fronted the first regular nominating campaign to place candidates 
in the field at the general election, which was held in November 
of that year. The Republicans of the county nominated the follow- 
ing ticket: Superior judge, Justin Jacobs; sheriff, W. V. Buckner; 
county clerk, F. L. Howard; recorder and auditor, F. J. Peacock; 
treasurer and tax collector, J. N. Hoyt; assessor, G. W. Follett; 
superintendent of schools, J. W. Graham; district attorney, A. G. 
Park; coroner and public administrator, J. A. Moore; surveyor, 
E. P. Irwin; supervisors: B. L. Barney, W. A. Long, J. M. Hamilton, 
George B. McCord and Styles McLaughlin; constables, H. M. Bern- 
stein, 0. G. Bryan, J. H. Thompson; justices of the peace, J. B. 
Lewis, G. W. Randall, G. Harrington. 

The Democrats placed in nomination the following ticket: 
Superior judge, Archibald Yell; sheriff, L. E. Hall; county clerk, 
Francis Cunningham; recorder and auditor, C. C. Farnsworth; 
treasurer and tax collector, W. H. Slavin; assessor, John Rourke; 
superintendent of schools, C. A. McCourt ; district attorney, M. L. 
Short; coroner and public administrator, B. R. Clow; supervisors: 
D. Gamble, Jesse Brown; John Dawson, C. D. Coates, H. Clawson; 
constables : A. E. Blakeley, George E. Goodrich ; justices of the 
peace : Rufus Abbott, Joseph Williams, Frank BuUard, G. N. Furnish. 

The People's Party also placed nominees in the field, as follows: 
For sheriff, J. C. Goar; county clerk, John Gerow; recorder and 
auditor, F. M. Frazer; treasurer and tax collector, John "Wyruck; 
assessor, F. E. Howe; superintendent of schools, N. Z. Woodward; 
district attorney, Cosmer B. Clark; coroner and public adminis- 
trator, T. J. McQuiddv; surveyor, David Ross; supervisors: S. H. 
Von Schmidt, E. J. Gibson, T. F. Dillon, Frank MeClellan, T. W. 
Stanclart; constables, J. K. Davis, C. L. Pritchard, G. L. Meadows, 
Bascom Runyon; justices of the peace: J. P. Ford, James Shay. 

The election was held November 6, and there was a total of 
1843 votes cast. That year Kings county cast its plurality vote for 
M. M. Estee, Republican candidate for governor, giving him 696. 
James H. Budd, the Democratic candidate, received 598; J. V. Web- 
ster, People's Party candidate, received 400, and Henry French, 
Prohibition candidate, received 93 votes. 

The county contest was strenuously fought. That was the year 
when Populism was strong in this and Tulare county, and James 
MeClellan, Populist nominee for assemblyman, was elected, the dis- 
trict then being composed of Kings county and a portion of Tulare. 

The final count of the votes cast elected the following county 
officials: Superior judge, Justin Jacobs (R.) ; sheriff, W. V. Buck- 
ner (R.) ; clerk, Francis Cunningham (D.) ; recorder and auditor. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 185 

F. J. Peacock (R.) ; treasurer and tax collector, W. H. Slavin (D.) ; 
assessor, G. H. Follett (R.) ; siiperintendent of schools, J. W. Graham 
(R.) ; district attorney, M. L. Short (D.) ; coroner and public admin- 
istrator, J. A. Moore (R.) ; surveyor, E. P. Irwin (R.) ; supervisors: 
B. L. Barney (R.), W. A. Long (R.), T. F. Dillon (P.P.), Frank 
McClellan (P.P.), Styles McLaughlin (R.) ; constables: H. M. Bern- 
stein (R.), George E. Goodrich (D.), G. N. Furnish (D.) ; justices 
of the peace: George "W. Randall (R.), J. B. Lewis (R.), G. L. 
Meadows (P.P.). 

These officials took office on the following January 1st. 

ELECTION OF 1896 

The election of 1896 concerned only National and district matters, 
with the exception that in the second supervisoral district of the 
county there was a vacancy to be filled. Supervisor Frank McClellan 
resigned his office, and the contest for the vacancy was between 
George W. Clute, Republican, and F. M. Frazer, People's Party. 
The latter won the election. Kings county at this election went 
with the Fusionists, the McKinley electoral ticket receiving Imt 673 
votes to 863 for the Bryan electoral ticket. The county also voted 
a plurality of 118 for C. IT. Castle, Fusion candidate for congress, 
defeating W. W. Bowers, the Republican candidate. The county 
cast forty-seven independent votes for W. H. Carlson, and twenty- 
two for J. W. Webb, Prohibition candidate. James McClellan, 
Fusionist, carried the county for assemblyman against George B. 
McCord, Republican, by a majority of 203. The total registration 
of the county at this time was 1883, and the total vote cast was 1613. 

ELKCTTON OF 1898 

On account of the death of Superior Judge Justin Jacobs, which 
occurred on September 18, 1898, some new interest was injected into 
county politics. Upon the vacancy on the bench being created. Gov- 
ernor James H. Budd appointed Dixon L. Phillips, of Hanford, to 
fill out the unexpired term. Mr. Phillips had been prominent in the 
work of organizing the county, and being strong with the governor 
politically, his ajijilication met with executive approval. He took 
his seat on the bench Se]itember 29. 

M. L. Short, who was then district attorney, filed his petition to 
become an inde]:)endent candidate for judge at the coming election. 
Horace L. Smith, an attorney, who shortly prior to this time had 
located in Hanford, also came out for judge as an independent, and 
Dixon L. Phillips a])poarod in the race as a Fusionist su))ported 
by the Democrats, Populists and Silver Republicans. The cam]iaign 
was a lively one, but tlie Republicans had no candidate for the 
judgeslii)i. Tliere was no regular Democratic ticket for the county 
this year, but all opposition to the Republican party went by the 



186 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

title of Fusionists. Tlie race for the judgeship resulted in a victory 
for M. L. Short, he receiving a clear majority of 219 votes over 
his competitors. 

The Republicans nominated W. V. Buckner for sheriff, while 
George E. Shore was tlie Fusion candidate. Buckner was elected; 
F. Cunningham (F.) defeated B. A. Fassett (R.) for clerk; F. J. 
Peacock (R.) and J. M. Bowman (F.) ran a neck-and-neck race for 
recorder, each receiving 900 votes. The result of this tie caused 
the board of supervisors to call a special election to decide the tie. 
The date of said election was December 6, and the total vote which 
was cast at that election was 1537, of which Mr. Bowman received 
827 and Mr. Peacock 711). and Bowman was declared elected. 

Rowen Irwin (F.) defeated A. G. Park (R.) for district attorney, 
and S. M. Rosenberger (R.) won the auditorship against S. Sensa- 
baugli (F.). For treasurer W. H. Slavin (F.) was successful, his 
opponent being A. M. Stone (R.). Peter Van Valer (R.) tried con- 
clusions with John AVyruck (F.) for tax collector, the former win- 
ning. G. W. Follett (R.) defeated Frank McClellan (F.) for asses- 
sor, and ^Y. M. Thomas (R.) won the race for coroner and public 
administrator over Dr. Foley (F.). J. W. Graham (R.) was chosen 
su2)erintendent of schools, his apponent being J. J. Duvall (F.). 
E. P. Irwin (R.) defeated C. W. Talbot (F.) for surveyor. 

The su])ervisors elected were J. T. McJuukin, Styles McLaugh- 
lin and George Tomer, Re]Hiblicaus, and L. S. Chittenden and W. S. 
Burr, Fusionists. The unsuccessful candidates were S. B. Hicks, 
C. H. Brooks, James McDonald, all Fusionists, and George Curry, 
Inde])endent. 

Township officers were elected as follows : Justice of the jieace 
— George W. Randall, C. M. Smith and Bert Goldsmith, Repul)- 
licans, and H. J. Light, Fusionist. Constables chosen were H. M. 
Bernstein (R.) and George Goodrich and Granville Furnish, Fu- 
sionist. 

The county gave a slight majority for J. C. Needham, Repub- 
lican, for Congress. Also a plurality of twenty votes for Henry T. 
Gage, Republican, for governor. The total vote of the countv was 
1921. 

ELECTION OF 1900 

In Noveml)er, 1900, the total vote of the county as counted was 
2082. The county contest was over the election of superior judge, 
member of the assembly and surveyor. The Presidential election 
of this year also called upon the county to vote for a member of 
congress. In the county election the principal figlit was lietween 
E. T. Cosper, an ex-assemblyman, and M. L. Short, the incumbent 
on the bench. Mr. Short was the Democratic nominee, and won 
the election over Mr. Cosper, Republican, by a vote of 1048 to 950 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 187 

R. H. Myers (R.) for the assembly, received 997 votes; R. Mills 
(D.), 887! and W. R. MoQniddy (Pro.), 99 votes. The county gave 
J. C. Needham (R.), for congress, a plurality of 144. The presidential 
electors on the Republican ticket carried the county, the vote being 
MV.VI. to 877 for tlie Democi-atic electors, 42 for the Social Demo- 
crats and 48 for the Proliibitionists. 

COUNTY ELECTION OF 1902 

This campaign was between the Republicans and Democrats, 
the former Populistic organization having passed out of the run- 
ning. The Rei)ublicans nominated the following ticket: Sheriff, W. V. 
Buckner; clerk, Samuel Mullin; recorder, Clark Apjilegarth; tax col- 
lector, Peter Van \'aler; auditoi-, S. M. Rosenberger; district attorney. 
H. Scott Jacobs; assessor, George W. Murray; treasurer, J. M. 
Camp; superintendent of schools, J. W. Graham; surveyor, John 
Benedict ; coroner and public administrator, W. M. Thomas. 

For supervisors the following were nominated: S. McLaughlin, 

F. P. Watson, H. D. Barton, John Worswick and James Manasse. 

The township officers nominated were: For justice of the peace, 
C. M. Smith and George W. Randall. For constable, 11. M. Bern- 
stein and C. E. Kendall. 

R. H. Meyers, who had been elected two years jirevious to the 
assembly, succeeded during his term to get through a bill making 
Kings county an assembly district by itself and he was, therefore, 
given the Republican nomination for that office for a second term, 
not, however, without much ojiposition in the county convention. 

The Democrats placed before the people the following ticket: 
For sheriff, L. S. Chittenden; clerk, F. Cunningham; district attor- 
ney, Rowen Irwin; recorder, J. M. Bowman; assessor, M. B. Wash- 
Imrn; treasurer, William Slavin; su]ierintendent of schools, Mrs. 
N. P]. Davidson ; coroner and inil)lic administrator, T. Card. For 
sni)ervisors — J. Haves, W. S. Burr, J. R. High, A. R. Davis, R. 
Mills. 

The nominees for townshij) officers on this ticket were : For 
justice of the peace — G. L. Meadows, W. II. Vaughn, P. Carrasco. 
For constables — George Goodridi, J. Alcorn, C. W. Keller and G. 
Furnish. 

The candidates who ran iude]iendent of party tickets were: 

G. "VV. Follett for assessor, and J. W. Ferguson for justice of the 
])eace. 

The result of llic election held on November 2 was favorable 
to the following set of officers: Assemblyman, John G. Covert 
(I).); sheriff. W. V. P.uckner (R.) ; clerk," F. Cunningham (D.); 
district attorney, II. Scott .lacobs (R.) ; recorder, J. M. Bowman 
(D.) ; auditoi-, S. Jiosenberger (R.); tax collector, Peter Van Valer 
(R.) as.sessor, George W. Muiray (R.); treasurer, W. H. Slavin 



188 TULAKE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

(D.) ; snperinteudeut of schools, Mrs. N. E. Davidson (D.) ; coroner 
and public administrator, W. M. Thomas (R.) ; surveyor, John Bene- 
dict (R.). 

Supervisors elected were: S. McLaughlin. H. D. Barton, both 
Republicans, and R. Mills, A. R. Davis and W. S. Burr, Democrats. 

The township officers chosen were: Justices of the peace — ■ 
George W. Randall, Republican, and G. L. Meadows and P. Car- 
rasco. Democrats. Constables — H. M. Bei-nstein, Republican, and 
G. E. Goodrich and C. W. Keller, Democrats. 

At this election Kings county gave 999 votes to Franklin K. 
Lane, Democrat, for governor and 956 votes to George C. Pardee, 
Republican. There were 51 Socialist and 28 Prohibition votes cast. 

ELECTION OF 1904 

Locally this election was a contest between the parties over 
the election of a member of the assembly. J. H. Fox, of Lemoore, 
was the nominee of the Republicans, while the Democrats put 
forward John F. Pryor of Ilanford. Mr. Pryor was successful, 
receiving 926 votes, to 884 cast for Mr. Fox. 

James C. Needham, Republican candidate for congress carried 
the county, receiving 1110 A-otes, while the Democrats cast 620 
votes for W. M. Conley. The Socialist vote for congressman was 
95, and the Prohibitionists cast 50 votes. The Roosevelt electoral 
ticket received 1112, and the Parker electoral ticket 593. 

ELECTION OF 1906 

This was a general state and county campaign, and the interest 
so far as the county fight was concerned was centered in the contest 
for the office of the superior judge. The nominees were Robert W. 
Miller, Re])ul)lican, and John G. Covert, Democrat, and the official 
returns showed how close the race was, as Mr. Miller received 1081 
votes and Mr. Covert 1087. 

W. V. Buckner (R), who had been sheriff of the county since 
its first organization, was re-elected to the office, and F. Cunning- 
ham (D), who was the first clerk of the county still maintained his 
hold upon the politics of the countv and was re-elected over 
Clarence Ruggles (R), and T. W. Baker (S), J. L. C. Irwin (D), 
for district attorney was elected, his comjietitor being H. Scott 
Jacobs (R). J. M. Bowman (D) won the recordership, defeating 
J. T. Baker (R) ; S. M. Rosenberger (R), was elected auditor, de- 
feating C. T. Walker (D) and J. H. Rathbun (S) ; Peter Van 
Valer (R) was again successful in his race for tax-collector, de- 
feating F. M. Fra^zer (D) and J. Pfeifer (S). L. C. Dunham (R) 
was chosen treasurer, defeating M. B. Washburn (D.), and B. 
Freese (S.). George W. Murray (R.) was re-elected assessor, receiv- 
ing the largest vote of any candidate on either ticket, 1509, his 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 189 

opponent being J. W. Barbour (D). The office of coroner and 
public administrator was won by W. M. Thomas (R), his com- 
petitors being J. M. Bond (D), and A. L. Weddle (S). Mrs. 
N. E. Davidson (D) was successful in her candidacj^ for super- 
intendent of schools for the second term, defeating Miss Inez Covert 
(R), and E. E. Douglass (S). For surveyor John Benedict (R) 
defeated C. W. Talbot (D). 

The contest for supervisors was a victory for the Democrats, 
as that i)arty elected G. E. Sliore, W. S. Burr, L. Y. Montgomery 
and J. E. Hall, representing the country district. Their Repiiblican 
opponents were: H. L. Jennings, J. M. Denham, H. D. Barton and 
Charles Latham, respectively. Frank Smith (R), of the Hanford 
district won over R. Mills (D) for re-election. 

in the township offices for justices of the peace J. M. Camp (R), 
J. AY. Ferguson (D), C. M. Smith (R) and E. Erlanger (R), were 
successful, the other candidates being B. "W. Moore, G. L. Meadows, 
James Shay and P. Carrasco, Democrats. For constables, IT. M. 
Bernstein (D), G. E. Goodrich (D), H. Ammerman (R), and E. 
Brothers (R) were elected, the other candidates being L. Adkins (D), 
and W. P. Hayes (D). 

The contest for the office of assembhinan at this election was a 
lively fight, as the question of the division of Fresno county was then 
a burning issue, and Kings county people had united with the people 
of the Coalinga district of Fresno county for the purpose of slicing 
the latter county in two from the north boundary of Kings county 
westerly along the fourth standard parallel line and adding the 
territory thus cut off to Kings county. 

William L. McGuire, a young attorney of Hanford, was nomin- 
ated for the assembly, he having the county expansion issue as 
peculiarly his own, and he was backed by a powerful force of people 
interested in the oil bearing territory on the west side of Fresno 
county, and other interests. The Democrats nominated Patrick Tal- 
ent, of Hanford. The Socialists put up F. M. Senteney. William 
R. McQuiddy was an Inde]Dendent candidate for the office. After 
a spirited contest between McGuire and Talent, the former won the 
election by a vote of 1133. Mr. Talent received 898; Mr. Senteney 
70 and Mr. McQuiddy 95. 

Congressman J. C. Needham (R) still maintained his bold 
upon the voters of the county, receiving 1202 votes, to 8.'>2 cast for 
H. A. Greene (D), 89 cast for R. Kirk (S), and 41 cast for H. E. 
Burbank (P). 

The countv cast 1056 for James N. Gillett (R) for governor; 967 
for T. A. Beli (D), and 49 for J. H. Blanchard (Pro.) and 94 for 
W. IT. Langdon, Tndcjx-ndent and Tiabor Union. 



190 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

ELECTION OF 1908 

This connty strnggie had one feature which was similar to the 
campaign of 1906, in that count}' expansion was again to the front. 
The McGuire plan to annex the southwestern portion of Fresno 
county to Kings two years ago failed after a severe struggle, and in 
1907-8 plans were laid for another attempt to annex some of Fresno 
territory, but not to such an extent as in 190<). This annexation 
struggle did not develop, however, until after the election in Novem- 
ber. 1908, after which, W. J. Webber, Democratic member of the 
assembly who was elected over Harry P. Brown, Eepul)lican, took his 
seat in the legislature and introduced a bill known as the Webber 
bill, which was finally enacted, and added :208 square miles of Fresno 
territory to the northwestern portion of the original county of Kings. 
This was not accomplished, however, without much litigation between 
the counties of Fresno and Kings, but the courts finally settled by 
decision the validity of the procedures, and Kings county went upon 
the map in new form with a vast area of very fertile land watered by 
Kings river added to it. 

The county contest this year was confined to the election of 
an assemblyman, Mr. Brown receiving 1042 votes, while Mr. Webber 
received 1072. J. M. Foster, Socialist, received 95. 

In the vote for congressman, J. C. Needham (R), received 1180 
votes; F. P. Fellz (D) 883; W. M. Pattison (S), 103, and J. W. 
Webb( Pro.) 55. 

The Republican electoral ticket received 1198 votes ; the Democrat 
ticket 859; Independent League 12; Socialist 112, and Prohibi- 
tion 71. 

ELECTION OF 1910 

The increased vote cast at this election illustrated tlie growth 
of the county in poi)ulation and annexation, for the total vote cast 
for the candidates for governor was 2997. Hiram Johnson as the 
Republican nominee, carried the county by 351 iilurality over Theo- 
dore A. Bell, whose vote was 1149. Stit Wilson, Socialist, received 
305, and Meade, Prohibitionist, 43. 

The contest over the assemblvman was between W. J. Webber 
(D), Frank J. Walker (R), and W. R. McQuiddy (Pro.). Mr. 
Walker won on a narrow plurality of six votes. 

For the first time since the county was organized the Repub- 
licans put forth a new candidate for sheriff in the person of L>"man 

D. Farmer, a young man who was the deputy of Sheriff Buckner at 
the time of the convention. Mr. Farmer was pitted against George 

E. Goodi'ich (D). Fanner won the election with a majority of 247. 

F. Cunningham (D) for clerk was re-elected to the office, defeating 
A. F. Florey (R); J. L. C. Irwin (D) defeated Frank E. Kilpatrick 



TULARP] AND KINGS COUNTIES 191 

(R), for district attorney; D. Buun Rea (R) was elected auditor over 
James Manning (D); L- C. Dunham (R) was elected treasurer, de- 
feating H. L. C'onklin (D) ; George W. Murray (R) had no opposi- 
tion for the office of assessor; M. B. Washburn (D) was elected tax- 
collector, defeating J. "Worswick (R); J. M. Bowman (D) defeated 
Perry Griswold (R) for recorder; Mrs. N. E. Davidson (D) was 
elected superintendent of schools, defeating W. J. M. Cox (R) ; J. 
Clarence Rice (R) defeated .1. D. Hefton (D) for coroner and ]mblie 
administrator; A. J. Neilsen (R) was elected county survevor, de- 
feating J. M. Thomas (D). 

The supervisors elected were: T. E. Cochrane and A. F. Smith, 
Republicans, and J. L. Hall, Frank Blakeley and William Vaughan, 
Democrats. The defeated candidates were: W. S. Burr and James 
Butts, Democrats; J. M. Dean, Socialist, and Styles McLaughlin and 
11. D. Barton, Republicans. 

Justices of the peace elected were: J. W. Ferguson, G. L. 
Meadows and H. J. Light, Democrats, and C. M. Smith and Jesse 
Harris, Republicans. Constaliles chosen were: H. M. Bernstein, John 
Bartlet and C. C. A. Henden, Republicans, and Perry Gard and S. 
Blank, Democrats. 



192 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

CHAPTER XXIII 
IRRIGATION 

The history of irrigatiou iu Kings couuty dates hack to 1872, 
when its present territory constituted a part of Tulare county. The 
lesser benefits of irrigation had been demonstrated by private parties 
in dit¥erent iiarts of Tulare county, who made efforts to get water 
from the rivers out to their orchards and gardens on a very limited 
scale. But these primary efforts were all sufficient to prove the 
magic effect of irrigation on the rich desert soil which had lain dorm- 
ant through the embalming summer sunshine of past centuries. Eager 
settlers were rushing into the country and when they saw what water 
put to the soil would do ; when they saw the prolific streams of Kings 
river, Kaweah river and Cross creek sweeping down to the basin of 
Tulare lake; and when they east their eyes eastward and upward 
to the illimitable fields of snow and ice cradled among the stupend- 
ous heights of the Sierra Nevada mountain range, the object lesson 
was easy. Nature's mighty resources lay plainly before them, offer- 
ing the first grand inspiration for organized effort to harness these 
resources for the reclamation of the desert. 

The first successful attempt to irrigate on practical and extended 
lines was made in 1872, by M. D. Bush, V. F. Geiseler, R. B. Huey 
and a number of other citizens, who projected the Lower Kings River 
ditch, covering territory north and east of the town of Lemoore. This 
ditch company was incorporated in 1873 by the enterprising pioneers 
of Lemoore and vicinity and its success was an object lesson that 
inspired the settlers of adjoining districts. When the people saw 
what water applied to the soil would do, there was a firm resolve to 
get it at all hazards. The first crops raised on lands irrigated by 
tliis ditch furnished labor for many hard-up settlers and the straw 
from the grain fields was largely used as fodder for the stock of the 
country which proved a God-send to many a "Sandlapper." 

Soon after the above company had demonstrated probable suc- 
cess an enterprising citizen named Daniel Spangler planned to build 
an irrigating canal from Kings river to what was known as the Lone 
Oak district, which was designated by a single oak tree standing out 
on the plains aljout four miles southwest of the present city of Han- 
ford. From this "Lone Oak" to the point where Mr. Spangler in- 
tended to tap Kings river to supply liis canal with water was a dis- 
tance of about twenty miles. Later the People's Ditch Company of 
Kings river was formed by an association of farmer settlers which 
took over by mutual transfer the Spangler projects. The People's 
Ditch Company was incorporated in February, 1873, by Jesse Brown, 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 193 

W. W. Boyd, George W. Camp, C. Hyatt, Peter Kanawyer, aud a 
score or more of other settlers all eager to be identified with the 
great work of transforming their desert acres into homes of future 
productiveness and wealth. The actual work of making the ditch was 
commenced that year aud proceeded as rapidly as possible consider- 
ing the limited means of its incorporators. P. J. Sibley was the 
engineer who located and surveyed the course of the ditch nearly on 
its present permanent line. It was first intended to build one branch 
of the ditch into Township 21 south range 20 east, but said branch 
was never comijleted beyond the south boundary line of township 18 
South, range 21 east, a short distance from Armona. The season of 
1874 found between three and four miles of the ditch constructed 
and this was from the point of intake on the river to a point 
below the structure known as the "Burris check." Very little 
irrigating was done that season. During the months of May and 
June of that year the water from Kings river ran through the old 
channel known as the Burris slough, southeasterly into Cross creek. 
During the fall and winter of 1874-5 work was prosecuted quite 
rapidly, so that in the spring of 1875 the company was able to con- 
trol and distribute systematically considerable water to its stock- 
liolders for the irrigation of crops. When the water was turned into 
the lower ]iortion of the ditch, considerable difficulty was experi- 
enced in getting it through on account of the porous nature of the 
soil. It frequently happened that forty to fifty cubic feet ]ier second 
would flow for days into subterranean cavities. This would so soften 
the ground, sometimes for a half mile, that it was dangerous to 
drive a team over the field near the ditch. At the end of the irri- 
gating season of 1875 it was found that the ditch was far from lieing 
completed according to the plans and specifications of the engineer. 
In places it was not down to grade and in other places not u]i to 
grade and in very few places of the width originally ]:)roposed. The 
company was first incorporated for $10,000, but this amount was 
soon found to be inadequate to complete the great undertaking. 
Under existing laws assessments on the stockholders could not be 
collected in sums large enough to complete the work in a reasonable 
time. So the capital stock was increased to $30,000 in 1875 ; this latter 
sum not being equal to the demands, the same was increased to 
$100,000. After the struggles, privations and great self-denials of 
these sturdy pioneers the ditch was finally completed as it now exists, 
about the year 1878 or 1879. During the early years of the work 
assessments were called for so frequently that many of the stock- 
holders were unable to meet them and their stock had to be sold for 
the assessments. The whole number of shares of capital stock issued 
was subscribed for and the assessments kept up for a while, but prior 
to 1881 more than one-third of the stock issued was sold for assess- 



V.U TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

meiits and bought in for the company, because no one living- in the 
country on land covered liy the ditch at that time had money to 
buy the stock. In 1912 the total number of shares outstanding and 
which have not varied for twenty-five years, is sixty-three and thir- 
teeu-sixteenths shares. These shares are now held by more than 
two hundred persons. The largest number of shares now owned by 
one person is not over five, except that the Settlers Ditch C'ompany 
now owns sixteen and one-half shares. About 1890, shortly after the 
passage through the state legislature of what was known as the 
Wright Irrigation Bill providing for the creation of irrigation dis- 
tricts throughout the state, the Tulare Irrigation District was formed 
and its i)romotors bought from the Settlers Ditch Company its right 
to take water from the Cross creek and floated its point of diversion 
to a point on Kaweali river about ten miles northeast of Visalia. 
Thus having sold its water right, the Settlers Ditch Company pur- 
chased from the Peoples Ditch Company the sixteen and one-tweTfth 
shares of stock to resupply its ditch. The advantage resulting from 
the change was that the stockholders of the Settlers Ditch Company 
were able to have water for irrigation for a longer season each 
year. 

In the early '90s the Riverside Ditch Company was incorporated 
for the purpose of ajJiiropriating water from Kings river and for 
taking it from a point just above the lower headgate in the Peoples 
ditch. This ditch extends westerly along the south bank of Kings 
river for a distance of about ten miles and supplies water for irri- 
gation to several thousand acres of rich land lying south of Kings 
river. It operates as an auxiliary factor to the Peoples ditch, many 
of the latter 's stockholders owning stock in the Riverside ditch and 
many land owners along the Riverside ditch renting water from 
stockholders of Peoples ditch. 

SETTLERS DITCH 

In June, 1874, an association of farmers organized the Settlers 
Ditch Company, with the intention of supjjlying mostly a tract of 
land in township 18 south, range 22 east, being east and northeast 
of Hanford. Major Thomas J. McQuiddy, George W. Cotton, C. 0. 
Butler, George Slight, J. M. Cary, Jeremiah Lambert, Orrin Jef- 
fords, J. W. Brown, Alex Taylor, John Urton, Joe Perrin, Ely Bock, 
C. H. Robinson, Jack Wickham, were the leading men in })romoting the 
interests of this enterprise and incorporating it under the state laws 
of California. William R. McQuiddy was the first secretary. Attorney 
W. W. Cross wrote the articles of incorporation. The new company 
bought instruments for surveying and William R. McQuiddy acted as 
surveyor for the i)reliminary work of locating the ditch head at the 
mouth of Cross creek, after which John S. Urton took charge of the 
engineering and made definite location of the ditch lines and staked 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 195 

them out ready for the coustruetion gangs, composed ol' the stock- 
holders who worked on different sections of the ditcli as ai)portioned 
by tlie nianagemeut. Actual woik in excavating was begun in the 
fall of 187-i and proceeded under dil'liculties through the winter and 
spring of 1875. Hard pan was found at the upper end of the works, 
which uecessitated a raise in the grade, this calling for a dam or weir 
in Cross creek to elevate the water supply to the new grade of the 
ditch. It was also found necessary to make a cut two miles above 
from this channel across to Main stream so as to insure water at 
all times wlien there was water therein. This cut was 16UU feet 
long and in places had to be cut down through havdpan. On De- 
cember 1, 1875, the ditch was practically completed as far south as 
the county road running east from the nortli line of the city of 
JIanford. The water was turned into the ditch about December 1, 
and the stockholders began to use it on their lands with great rejoicing- 
over their deliverance from the arid conditions of the past. To 
celeljrate this iminntant event a meeting was called at the Eureka 
schoolbouse. Nearly every person in the community was present, 
and the good cheer and enthusiasm of all told the story of their 
triumph over the adverse conditions through which they had passed. 
One of the principal actors in this celebration was Lyman B. Ruggies, 
who had bought out George W. Cotten a few months i)revious. The 
speechmaking, the songs composed for the occasion, and the banquet 
of the best eatables that the country then afforded, made this cele- 
bration a very enjoyable one for all. Memory turns back from these 
days of plenty to those days of salt grass, bacon and beans, with 
so little money, and such a scarcity of credit, and wonders how in 
the world they ever accomplished such herculean tasks. It was surely 
a journey through the wilderness, without grain or hay for horse- 
feed, simply salt grass, and very meager food for men. AVhat was 
true of the brave men who builded the Settlers' ditch was true of all 
the other pioneers who from 1872 and later built the other ditches 
which now carry the living water to their luxuriant homesteads. The 
Lower Kings river, the Peoples' Ditch, the Last Chance, and the 
Lakeside Companies were all manned by men of sjilendid courage, 
great endurance and a sublime faith that sustained them and led 
them on in the face of all kinds of hardsliips and privations to ulti- 
mate success. This history may not give every name entitled to 
credit for the early development of Kings county soil, because they 
may not all be recalled to memory, but those not named are no less 
deserving a place in the record of a righteous service to mankind. 

THE LAST CH.A.NCE 

In 1873 the Last Chance Ditch Company was formed to take water 
from Kings river to supply the rich lands in the vicinity of Grange- 
ville. The system was about completed in one season and proved 



196 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

very successful to tlie territory for which it was intended. The tirst 
board of directors of the Last Chance consisted of William L. Morton 
(chairman), William Ingram, C. W. Hackett, 0. H. Bliss, J. R. Hein- 
len, Justin Esrey, L. Gilroy (secretary), J. G. Moore. George Smith, 
(surveyor), G. H. Hackett, L. Waggner, G. S. Foster, G. T. Thornton, 
M. S. Babcock, W. A. Caruthers, 0. L. Wilson, W. R. SuUenger, 
John Kurts, E. Erlanger, L. Lowery, John Martin, W. H. Whitesides, 
William Sutherland, Lewis Haas, Jonathan Esrey, James Sibley, 
Perry Phillips, George W. Cody, E. Giddings, J. H. Shore, A. S. 
Avers, C. Eailsback, E. M. Cleveland, Jesse Brown, W. W. Parlin, 
C. M. Blowers, John Chambers were among the sturdy pioneers and 
stockholders of the Last Chance enterprise who plowed and scraped 
on beans and bacon that the desert might bloom as a blessed heritage 
for future generations. 

In the year 1874 the Lakeside Ditch Company was organized, 
but did not get to doing much until 1875, when it built a canal thirty 
feet wide and three feet deep to cover the unirrigated lands southeast 
and south of Hauford. The company appropriated three hundred 
and one cubic feet per second from Cross creek, a branch of Kaweah 
river. The first board of directors consisted of Robert Doherty 
Samuel F. Deardorff, C. W. Clark. George A. Dodge, Perry C. 
Phillips. J. Wliiting, Jacob Marsh. Other members and stockholders 
of the company who were identified in the promotion and actual 
construction of the Lakeside were : Claude Giddings, George W. Clute, 
William Kerr, William Covert, John Rourke, Thomas McCarty, Pat- 
rick McCarty, John McCarty, E. J. Dibble, E. McNamee, S. D. Brewer, 
Joseph Peacock, Andrew Blend, W. H. Winnie, A. M. Stone, Simon 
Stone, John Sigler, R. S. Wait, Oscar Clapp, J. C. Rice, E. P. Irwin, J. 
G. Herriford. David Dodge, Caryl Church, Henry Hildebrand. George 
McCann. M. A. Hill, George Doherty, William Doherty, John Smith, 
James McClellan, Frank McClellan, J. T. Gurnsey, E. Twinning, C. B. 
Dodge, L. C. Hawley, William H. Dodds, J. V. Dodds. The Lakeside 
ditch serves a large district, which is largely devoted to dairy and 
stock interests. 

Some years later Carr and Chamberlain built a canal to cover a 
fine tract of land formerly lake bottom on the north side of Tulare 
lake. This canal is served by water from the Peoples' ditch and 
hence is not a primary factor, but simply an extension of the irriga- 
tion system. 

LAKELAJTD CATC^AL, AND lEETGATION COMPAXY 

In the year 1903 the above named company was formed with the 
intention of appropriating water from Kings river a few hundred 
yards above the Peoples' Ditch Comi^any's point of intake. The 
leading men in its organization were Dr. N. P. Duncan. J. Frank 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 197 

Pryor, Dr. R. E. Dixon, J. D. MeCord. The project fontemjilated 
the irrigation of hinds al)ovit the present city of Corcoran and those 
hike bottom lauds then and thereafter to be reclaimed. Tlie opera- 
tions of the company have been held in abeyance on acconnt of 
litigation so that its prospective good results have not yet been 
realized. R. D. Hunter, E. E. Bush, F. C. Paulin, Stoddard Jess, 
C. W. Gates, A. H. Brawley are the more recent promoters and 
custodians of the comjiany's interests. The final success of the 
undertaking means much to a large area of very fertile land south 
and east of Tulare lake. 

BL.\KELEY DITCH 

In the spring of 1899 F. Blakeley, Hi Clausen, Max Lovelace, 
R. E. McKenna, Jack Rhodes and Stiles McLaughlin associated 
themselves together for the promotion of what is commonly called 
the Blakeley ditch, contemjilating the irrigation of a ti'act of fine 
land west and northwest of Tulare lake. The company approjiriated 
100,000 inches of water from Kings river at a point about one-half 
mile below the lower bridge. After three miles of canal had been 
constructed, Mr. Blakeley on his own account extended the system 
so that its ditches measured thirty-eight miles. 

The Empire Water Com]iany was created to distribute watei- 
over the lands of the rich district known as the Empire ranch. Also 
the Mercedes Pum])iug Company was formed prospectively to water 
land west of Kings river. 

THE KIXGS CANAL AXD IRRIGATION COMPANY 

This <'om])any was promoted by Henry Cousins, Hi Clauson, 
Frank Blakeley, Max Lovelace, Stiles McLaughlin, a Mr. Ogle and 
others about the year 1900 and contemplated the irrigation of lands 
east of Kings river and north of Tulare lake as well as future lands 
reclaimed by the receding of the lake. It is supplied by the same 
appropriation of the waters from Kings river and served by the 
same dam as the Blakeley ditch and in fact is twin to the latter 
named ditch. It is about one hundred feet wide in places and the 
system embraces about twenty-eight miles of ditch. 

RAINFALL FOR TWENTY-ONE YEARS 

The history of a locality would not 1)e com])lete without containing 
a record of those "heavenly blessings" furnished by the weather 
god. Herewith is presented an authentic rain table kept since 189L 
showing the measurement of rain by the month, as gauged at 
Hanford : 

Year 1891-92— June, 0.00; July, 0.00; August, 0.00; September, .52; 



198 TULAEE AXD KINGS COUNTIES 

October, 0.00; Noveml)er, .40; December, 1.92; January, .41; Febru- 
ary, .99; March, 2.27; April, .19; May, 1.26; total annual, 7.96. 

Year 1892-93— June, 0.00; July. 0.00; August, 0.00; September, 
0.00; October, .26; November, .;>8; December, 1.46; January, 2.8.3; Feb- 
ruary, 1.22 ; March, 2.53 ; April, .13 ; May, 0.00 ; total annual, 8.81. 

Year 1893-94— June, 0.00; July, 0.00; August, 0.00; September, 
0.00; October, .02; November, .20; December, 1.34; January, .87; Feb- 
ruary, .40; March, .33; April, .09; May, .20; total annual, 3.45. 

Year 1894.95— June, .72; July, 0.00; August, 0.00; September, 
.53; October, .25; November, 0.00; December, 3.00; January, 2.79; Felv 
ruary, .97; March, .96; April, .50; May, .38; total annual, 10.10. 

Year 1895-96— Jime, 0.00; July, 6.00; August, 0.00; September, 
0.00; October, 1.05; November, 0.00; December, .35; January, 1.70; 
February, 0.00; March, .55; April, .76; May, .15; total annual, 4.56. 

Year— 1896-97— June, .0.00; July, .11; August, .02; September, 
0.00; October, .61; November, .72; December, .68; January, 1.56; 
February, 1.86; March, .11; April, .95; May, 0.00; total annual, 6.62. 

Year— 1897-98— June, 0.00; July, 0.00; xVugust, 0.00; September, 
0.00; October, 1.80; November, .21; December, .48; January, .38; Feb- 
ruary, .89 ; March, .03 ; April, .91 ; May, .41 ; total annual, 5.11. 

Year— 1898-99— June, 0.00 ; July, 0.00; August, 0.00; September, 
1.44; October, .11; November, .08; December, .75; January, 1.04; Feb- 
ruary, .17 ; March, .30 ; April, 2.66 ; May, .26 ; total annual, 6.81. 

Year— 1899-00— June, .26; July, 0.00; August, 0.00; September, 
0.00; October, .96; November, 1.18; December, 1.23; January, 1.61; 
Februarv, 0.00; March, 1.26; April, 1.33; May, 2.27; total annual, 10.10. 

Year— 1900-01— June, 0.00; July, 0.00; August, 0.00; September, 
0.00; October, .25; November, 2.21; December, .22; January, 3.30; Feb- 
ruarv, 2.82 ; March, .67 ; April, .27 ; May, 1.39 ; total annual, 11.13. 

Year— 1901-02— June, 0.00; July, 0.00; August. 0.00; September. 
.57 ; October, .51 ; November, .80 ; December, .24 ; January, .40 ; February, 
2.17; March, 1.43; April, .50; May, .08; total annual, 6.70. 

Year— 1902-03— June, 0.00; July, 0.00; August, 0.00; September. 
0.00; October, .32; November, 1.52; December, .63; January, 1.28; Feb- 
ruarv, .57; March, 1.76; April, .80; May, 0.00; total annual, 6.88. 

Year— 1903-04— June, 0.00; July, 0.00; August, 0.00; September, 
0.00; October, .05; November, .32; December, .13; January, .56; Feb- 
ruarv, 2.15 ; March, 3.07 ; April, .36 ; May, 0.00 ; total annual, 6.64. 

Year— 1904-05— June, 0.00; July, 0.00; August, 0.00; September, 
2.00; October, .74; November, 0.00; December, 1.24; January, 1.45; 
Februarv, 1.16; March, 2.20; April, .48; May, 1.05; total annual, 10.32. 

Year— 1905-06— June. 0.00; July, 0.00; August, 0.00; September. 
0.00 ; October, 0.00 ; November, 1.37 ; December, .41 ; January, 1.81 ; 
Februarv, 1.54; March, 4.77; April, .76; May, 1.76; total annual, 12.42. 

Year— 1906-07— June, 0.00; July. 0.00; August, 0.00; September, 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 199 

0.00; October, 0.00; November, ..39; December, 3.49; Jamiary, 3.51; 
February, .67 ; March, 2.39 ; April, .32 ; May, 0.00 ; total ammal, 10.77. 

Year— 1907-08— June, 0.00; July, 0.00; August, 0.00; Septem- 
ber. 0.00; October, .68; November, 0.00; December, 1.74; Jan- 
uary, 1.92; February, 3.03; March, 0.00; April, 0.00; May, .56; total 
annual, 7.93. 

Year— lf)08-09— June. 0.00; July, 0.00; August, 0.00; Sej^tember, 
.91 ; October, 0.00 ; November, .66 ; December, .31 ; January, 4.35 ; Feb- 
ruary, 3.21; March, 1.66; April, 0.00; May, .15; total annual, 11.25 

Year— 1909-10— Jime, 0.00; July, 0.00; August, 0.00; September, 
0.00; October, .19; November, 1.57; December, 2.56; January, 1.87; Feb- 
ruary, .08; March, 1.47; April, .05; May, .24; total annual, 8.03. 

Year— 1910-11— Jime, 0.00; July," 0.00; August, 0.00; September, 
1.51 ; October, .30 ; November, .23 ; December, .72 ; January, 3.37 ; Feb- 
ruary, 1.46; March, 2.94; April, 0.00; Mav, .50; total annual, 11.03. 

Year— 1911-12— Jiiue, 0.00; July, 0.00; August, 0.00; September, 
.04; October, .09; November, .23; December, .55; January, .51; Feb- 
ruary, .02; March, 3.15; April, .27; May, 1.52; total annual, 6.38. 



20(1 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 



CHAPTER XXIV 

EXIT AND RETURN OF TULARE LAKE 

The most iuleresting natural plienomeuon that has transpired in 
Kings county since its organization is the vanishing and reappearance 
of Tulare lake, a body of fresh water, for years the largest in area 
of any lake west of the Rocky Mountains. This lake at one time within 
the memory of some pioneers yet li\dng covered one thousand square 
miles of territory, extending from Kern county northwesterly to near 
Lemoore. From 1854 to 1872, a period of sixteen years, the area of 
this lake changed but little. But along in the '70s, irrigation from the 
streams that |)oured into this basin which forms the depression in 
the great Tulare valley, the borders of the lake gradually receded. It 
is the opinion of Dr. Gustav Eisen, who knew the lake in 1875 and who 
made a study of it again in 1898, that the use of the waters from the 
streams by the farmers caused the gradual recession. In a well-written 
article on the subject Dr. Eisen relates that recession was rajud at 
the end of the first three years of irrigation farming. The tapping of 
Kings and Tule rivers, and Cross creek which is fed by the Kaweah 
river, and the siireading of the water out upon the plains through 
great systems of canals and laterals caused the southern end of 
the lake to shrink materially. The shore line in 1854 represented the 
diagram of an oyster, but by 1875 the southern end had shrunk until 
it was about a mile in width. At that time the lake was a great hunt- 
ing and fishing ground. Sail boats and a steamboat plied its waters. 
At certain points a man could wade out for miles and not reach 
beyond his depth. From 1875 to 1880 the lake grew smaller and 
smaller and in 1882 the border had left Kern county entirely. In 1888 
it had become almost circular in shape. From a body of water 
almost eighty miles in lengih in 1858, by the time Kings county was 
formed it had shrunken to about two hundred and twenty square 
miles. The process of evaporation assisted in aiding the irrigatiouists 
to uncover the bottom and as that appeared it baked and cracked 
under the influence of the summer sun until, checked and fissured, 
it invited the attention of the land seeker, for by i)lacing solid wooden 
shoes sawed out of plank on the feet of horses, teams could be gotten 
upon the land and levees could be built and crops put in. "Wherever 
planting was done in this uncovered lake bottom it was discovered 
that the soil was rich, especially at the deltas of Kings and Tule 
rivers and Deer and Cross creeks. The uncovered lands belonged to 
the state under what was known as the Arkansas act jiassed by 
Congress in Septeml)er, 1850. This act provided that swamp and 
overflow lands such as were of no value in extending waterwavs and 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 201 

oonlfl not be settled upon under conditions governing' the Xntioual 
Homestead Act, should revert to the states in which such lands lay. 
The California legislature in 1872 passed a swamp and overflow land 
act which was subsequently amended, enabling settlers to locate on 
these lands belonging to the state, the uniform price to be $1 per 
acre. The law also provided for a reclamation system, which when 
the requirements were met, the state would pay back to the settler 
the $1 )ier acre advanced. Under this act nuich swamp and overflowed 
land was acquired l)y large corporations through their allied interests. 
In 1880 the state adopted a new constitution and an important change 
was made in the matter of handling the swamp land, and Article XVII 
provided that lands lielonging to the state which are suitable for 
cultivation shall lie granted only to actual settlers and in quantities 
not to exceed three hundred and twenty acres to each settler. 

As the waters of Tulare lake continued to vanish and the im- 
mense area was laid bare settlers and speculators believing that 
the lake had disappeared for all time, stampeded to Kings county 
and "Lakelanders" were as numerous and as enthusiastic as pros- 
pectors attracted to a great mining field where a lode has been 
struck. Eeclamation districts of large and small area were organized 
and levees were erected out of the silt marking the boundaries of such 
districts. As fast as the water could be fenced in to smaller area by 
the excited land-seekers the work went on and the claimants plowed 
and ]ilanted and harvested. Some enormous yields of wheat and 
barley were recorded. 

Finally, in 1895, there was no lake. Standing in the center of the 
vast expanse one May day the writer of this gazed out upon a vast 
sea of about 50,000 acres of waving grain. The millions of ducks and 
geese, pelicans, swan and other wild birds that once made the old 
lake their abiding place had vanished. A stray band of pelicans came 
in, looked down for the water, but finding none, vanished in the 
distance. Farmers banked upon a bounteous harvest. But during the 
winter months that had just passed the canyons of the mighty Sierras 
had been filled with snow and with the spring rains and warm con- 
ditions in the hills the torrents which had in other years formed and 
kept replenished the old lake came down the rivers. Some of the 
reclaimers who had particularly good levees managed through great 
exertion to get their grain out, while others less fortunate saw their 
thousand of acres go under water; saw their levees melt away like 
sugar, their houses, barns and haystacks float away, and in a few 
weeks the theory that irrigation and the nudtii^lied population of the 
country using the waters of the Sierras in growing \-ineyards and 
orchards had roblied the county of its lake, had vanished, and Tulare 
lake was again on the map covering about the same relative area as it 
did in 189:5. 



202 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

At present a great levee lias been built on the east side of the 
lake and many thousands of rich acres have thus been reclaimed and 
the further extension of the levee will expand the reclaimed territory 
to a large extent. 



CHAPTER XXV 
RAILROADS 

The T)uilding of railroads in Kings county since its birth. May 23, 
1893. is a matter of much historical im])ort because of the fact that 
the first competing line for the great San Joaquin Valley originated 
and took root through the action of Kings county citizens on July 5, 
1894:. On that date a group of men while gathered at the Hanford 
Sentinel office lamenting the lack of railroad facilities and the burdens 
from excessive transportation rates from the plug road already in 
operation, raised a somewhat plaintive cry, "Let's have an inde- 
pendent line," and on Thursday, July 12. 1894, "An Independent 
Line" constituted the headline under which the first rejiort of an 
organized effort was published and from which incipient effort 
resulted what was first called the San Joaquin Valley Railroad Com- 
pany. From the Hanford Sentinel of the above date we quote: "W. H. 
Worswick is the man who first sounded the key. ' ' The first committee on 
promotion was appointed at a meeting held in the office of D. R. Cam- 
eron, July •(, 1891, and consisted of the following representative men : "\V. 
W. Parlin, W. H. Worswick, D. R. Cameron, W. S. Porter, W. A. Long, 
A. V. Taylor, Archibald Yell. On the following day this committee met 
at the office of Archibald Yell "to consider the preliminaries of getting 
a start." By invitation E. Jacobs of Visalia was present and gave 
valuable suggestions. The discussions resulted in adding to the above 
committee the names of B. L. Barney, E. Jacobs, S. E. Biddle, W. P. 
McCord, Frank L. Dodge, W. J. Newport, the whole to constitute* a 
hoard of directors for a temporary organization; Archibald Yell being 
made president and D. R. Cameron, secretary. A committee named to 
map out a route through Kings county included the following gentlemen : 
E. P. Irwin, F. J. Walker. TT. il. Worswick, George A. Dodge, Joshua 
Worswick, W. P. McCord, W. W. Parlin. Numerous offers were made by 
farmers to give right of way and grade the road through their premises 
and general discussion and liberal offers of assistance were indulged in 
by the community at large. When the above reports had been circulated 
other counties took up the cry for "An Independent Line" and the 
next issue of the Sentinel carried the cheering headlines, "Now is the 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 203 

time to strike, for the iron is hot and the people know their needs. 
The action of Kings county meets with a hearty response from Contra 
Costa county." The Hauford organization was highly encouraged by 
letters from Antioch and San Francisco. Assurances of help by 
uniting with the Kings county people gave added impetus to the 
cause and the counties of Fresno, Tulare and Kern soon fell into line 
by holding public meetings and apitoiuting committees to confer with 
the Kings county organization. J. S. Leeds, manager of the San Fran- 
cisco Traffic Association, in an interview said: "It is a good time for 
San Francisco to go tn work. If one county can do what these people 
of Kings county are doing the other counties can be relied upon to do 
something of the same kind. Let us join hands with them." At 
Antioch a mass meeting was held and C. M. Belshaw introduced a 
strong resolution stating that the people of Antioch "are in hearty 
accord and sympathy with the scheme promulgated by the citizens of 
Kings county." C. G. Lamberson of Visalia who had interests in 
Kings county enlisted as a helper. Supervisors Letcher and Foster of 
Fresno county came out emphatically in favor of the Kings county 
movement and advocated a plan to bond Fresno county in the simi 
of $fi()O,000 to aid the project. Tulare county people began to awaken 
and Kern county also felt an impulse to join in a scheme to reduce 
a transportation rate, the excess of which over a fair and just rate 
would soon pay for a competing road. At this juncture the political 
camiiaign of 1894 came on and also a question of the government 
ownership of the Southern Pacific lines which had a tendency to 
damjjen the ardor of the jieople toward the newly proposed railroad 
in the various interior counties of the San Joafpiin Valley; Init the 
Ti'aftic Association of San Francisco about the middle of October, 
1894, began an effort to raise $350,000 to start "The Valley Railroad" 
as it was then called. Then a comi)any known as the "United Rail- 
road Com])any, " managed liy a man named ITartzell at Stockton. 
launched a scheme to build a road from Stockton to Bakersfield. 
This was in November, 1894. It sought to unite with the San Fran- 
cisco Traffic Association and was encouraged by P. McRae of Ilanford. 
The original movement by Kings county people seemed for a while 
held U)) by the efforts of the above combines and the seeming reluct- 
ance of capitalists in the northern metropolis to justly aid the interests 
of the San Joaquin A'alley people. Late in November, 1894, D. R. 
Cameron, secretary of the Kings county railroad jiromotion committee, 
threw a bombshell into the camp of the San Francisco business men 
l)y writing a letter to the Los Angeles Chamber of Conmierce, 
setting forth a proposition wlu'rel)y Los Angeles might unite in 
building a competing railroad into the San Joacpiin Valley, thus 
securing a substantial interchange of trade which their ])resent trans- 
portation rates prohibited. This valley had ])reviously looked north to 



204 TULAK1-: AND KINGS COUNTIES 

San Franoisco for aid. 'I'lie lethargy of that city was ])henonipnal. 
The proposition was well received by Los Angeles people and again 
enthusiasm went to an upper mark. A meeting was called by the 
Los Angeles Chamlier of Commerce for January 12, 1895. Delegations 
were sent to this meeting appointed by the Boards of Svipervisors of 
the res})ective counties as follows: Kings county, S. E. Biddle, F. L. 
Dodge, D. R. Cameron; Fresno county, T. C. White, Fulton G. Berry, 
J. II. Kelley. O. J. Woodward; Kern county, W. H. Holaliird; Tulare 
county, E. Barris. The delegates were well received by the Los 
Angeles Chaml)er of Commerce and two enthusiastic sessions were 
held at which resolutions endorsing the Matthews bill which was then 
pending before the State Legislature, empowering counties to issue 
bonds for constructing railroads within their boundaries. A commit- 
tee on Ways and Means was appointed. Said committee elected W. 
H. Holabird chairman, Charles Forman secretary, and J. M. Elliott 
of the First National Bank of Los Angeles, treasurer. The sense of 
the meeting was strong that a line of railway be built from Los An- 
geles into the San Joaquin Valley and recommended the means pro- 
vided by the Matthews Bill as an incentive for the various counties to 
act. 

The result of the Los Angeles meeting was the bomb that awak- 
ened San Francisco capitalists, for no sooner than reports reached 
them that Los Angeles was interested in getting the trade of this great 
valley did the Bay City see its danger and her prominent business 
men began to bestir themselves to enlist ca]ntal to come to the rescue. 
Word was quickly sent to the Kings county organization that a com- 
mittee of twelve had been selected in San Francisco with Claus 
Spreckels at the head, with a subscription of $700,000; that a company 
was forming to be capitalized in the sum of $2,000,000 which would 
all be subscribed in that city in a few days to guarantee the building 
of the new road from San Francisco to Bakersfield. The San Fran- 
cisco committee consisted of Claus Spreckels, Alexander Bovd, James 
D. Phelan, James F. Flood, O. D. Baldwin, David Meyer, w". F. Whit- 
tier, Albert Miller. Charles Holbrook, Thomas Magee, John T. Doyle, 
and E. F. Preston. This action electrified the whole city and set every- 
body talking about the new railroad, while the San Joaquin Valley 
rang with the hallelujahs of promised deliverance. Even Los Angeles 
took u)) the strain and advocated a continued line of road to that city. 
On January 2nd, 1895, a mass meeting was held in the Hanford Opera 
House. After discussion of the outlook by prominent citizens a com- 
mittee was appointed to confer with the San Francisco committee, 
consisting of E. p]. Manheim, D. R. Cameron, S. E. Biddle, P. McRae, 
F. L. Dodge. Louis F. Montagle. F. W. Van Sicklin, S. C. Lillis, A. 
Kutner, J. E. Rawlins. The San Francisco Chronicle encouraged the 
enterprise by giving a whole page write-up of the great resources of 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 205 

the various counties throu<>"li whieh the new road would pass. In its 
write-uji it said of Kings County : 

"Kini;s County is known as tlie l)aby county of the state, from tlie 
fact tliat it was tlie last one to be created. It was taken from Tulare 
County, and includes all of Tulare Lake, a shallow basin of about 100 
square miles in area. This new county of Kings is in the direct line 
of all railroad enterprises that expect to traverse the San Joaquin 
Valley. It has an assessed acreage of 427,281 acres and an assessed 
wealth of, in 1892, about $7,000,000. The territory of this county is 
irrigated by ditches having their sujiply from Kings and Kaweah 
rivers and Cross Creek, furnishing what is claimed to be the best, 
cheapest and most thorough irrigation system." 

At this time $2,100,000 had been subscribed and articles of incor- 
poration filed in which San Francisco and Bakersfield were named as 
terminal points. The ca|)ital stock of the company was placed at 
$6,000,000, the length of the road to be 350 miles. 

But all great enterjirises meet with difficulties and now came the 
one great question, how to get into San Francisco? Clans Spreckels 
found the way l)locked against right of way for terminal facilities and 
had to go to the State Legislature to get a Bill enacted so as to be able 
to lease mud flats for terminal grounds. 

Trouble also came to the people of Hanford and Kings county 
in the way of different routing of the line through the valley. Down 
the west side or the east side, which? While Kings county as the 
pioneers in the work had brought it to a probable success, her people 
were called u]iou to "put up" or lose the goose. As it was proclaimed 
by C. F. Preston, one of the San Francisco boosters, to be "a people's 
road, built with the jieople's money and owned by the people," the 
TIanford committee reported, after a canvass of the county, that 1068 
days' work by men and teams, making over three years' work, had 
been offered, several hundred tons of hay, an amount of liarley and 
some money; besides this three different men had promised to grade 
enough to make one-half the distance across the county. The city of 
Hanford would fui'nish depot grounds and i-ight of way. 

At this time 390 names were on the San Francisco subscrijition 
list, aggregating $2,388,300. Claus Spreckels said he wanted it called 
the "people's road" and not Spreckels' road. The San Fi-ancisco Ex- 
aminer said in its |)raise: "The valley road will save the trade and 
industry of the city from the strangling grip of the Southern Pacific's 
policy that is now directed to give the trade of the interior to Chicago 
and New York." 

April 29, 1895, Clans Spreckels, Robert Watt and Cajit. H. 11. 
Payson, directors of the new valley road, visited Hanford on a tour 
of inspection as to jjrobable routes and to view the resources from 
which the new road might expect pati'onage. The TIanf(U-d conunittee 
gave them a ride througli the surrounding couiiti\v and a ban(|uet. 



I'OG TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

The "Sau Fraucisco and San Joaquin Valley Railroad" had now be- 
come a certainty; rails had lieeu purchased for a beginning and con- 
tracts for construction were being negotiated. Committees in the va- 
rious counties were working for rights of way, it being about settled 
that the road from Fresno would branch to both sides of the valley. 
May 7th a Hanford committee, consisting of E. E. Bush, D. R. Cameron, 
L. S. Chittenden and Frank L. Dodge, were sent on a trip to look out 
the most direct route down the west side to Bakerstield. 

A committee of the directors of the road again visited Hanford 
on a final tour of inspection on May 7th, and it was then admitted 
that Hanford would be on the main line. On Friday, the 22nd day of 
January, 1897, was transacted the very important business of signing 
contracts with the San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley Railroad 
Company by which Kings County was to get the main line, and on 
Monday night, January 25th, the Hanford City Council granted a fran- 
chise through the city for the building and operating of the new road. 
On Tuesday, January 26th, duly authorized committee, consisting of 
E. E. Bush, D. R. Cameron and P. McRea, as custodians of the money 
raised and deeds collected for rights of way, signed the contract with 
the railroad company which secured the prize for which Kings county 
had been struggling for during the past three years. 

There was little left to be done by the people but to await the 
building of the road south from Fresno to Bakerstield, via Hanford. 
While Hanford people took the initiative and with commendable zeal 
pushed the enterprise from the start, the financial requirements were 
so far beyond them that the actual construction and equipment must 
necessarily pass to the hands of a comi^any of capitalists, which it did 
and thus the matter of control by the people was wholly lost and the 
question of its being and remaining a competing railroad when finished 
was a mere guess. However, it was an improvement much needed and 
desired by the people and all were pleased, and encouraged to greater 
activity in all lines of industry that belong to this, the greatest inland 
empire of the Pacific Coast. The actual coming of the iron horse over 
the new road was celebrated in Hanford on May 23rd, 1897, just two 
years, eleven months and eighteen days from the date of the first meet- 
ing in Hanford to start it. 

The celebration of its coming was combined with the fifth anni- 
versary celebration of Kings county. On that date the first passenger 
train over the new road sounded its whistle to the largest crowd that 
had ever gathered at Hanford. There were parades with bands of 
nmsic; floats representing horticultural and agricultui-al interests, as 
well as the city business houses, the educational and civic institutions 
of Kings county and many delegations of visitors from surrounding 
counties and towns. One thousand people came in on the first passenger 
train, including the directors and other officers of the new road. 

After the grand parade had been reviewed by the visitors and the 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 207 

happy thousands of home people, exercises were held at a grand stand 
where eloquent speeches were made by E. E. Manheim, president Han- 
ford Chamber of Commerce; Judge Justin Jacobs of Kings county, 
Vice-President Robert Watt of the road. Col. E. E. Preston, counsel 
for the road. It was a gala day for Kings county, then the baby 
county of tlie state, because the new road had reduced freights and 
farjes to San Francisco about one-third and had brought such im- 
proved accommodations as to merit the praise of all. 



CHAPTER XXVI 
DAIRY INDUSTRY 

No history of Kings county would be complete without mention 
of the dairy industry, and it was only four years prior to the organiza- 
tion of the county that the dairy industry was foimded, in the year 
1889, by a few progressive ranchers. It was due to their foresight 
and persistent efforts that a co-operative company for the manufacture 
of cheese was formed and incorporated. At that time it was generally 
believed that climatic conditions in this part of the valley were such 
as to preclude the successful manufacture of dairy products commer- 
cially, but the new company erected a factory at Hanford and sub- 
sequently another factory was built in the Lakeside district, eight 
miles south. The Lakeside institution operated for several years, but 
was finally acquired by the Hanford company. The establishment of 
these factories inspired the ranchers to improve their stock, and the 
mongrel cows of the old home dairy days gave way to imported short- 
horn Durham, Plolstein, Jersey, Ayrshire and other breeds, so we can 
mark the beginning of the i^resent extensive dairy business here to 
the advent of factory cheese-making. As it was soon learned that 
alfalfa was the great forage for the dairy, cheese making prospered, 
and in 1889 the two cheese factories passed into the ownership of 
A. B. Crowell, one of the coimty's first interested dair^^nen. In that 
year he made up into cheese 1700 pounds of milk per day. During 
the six years which followed, the patronage of the factories grew to 
10,000 pounds of milk ]ier day, and in the year 1902 the Hanford fac- 
tory, which had then swallowed up the Lakeside plant, turned out 
150,000 pounds of cheese. But in 1897, F. J. Peacock established a 
butter factory in the Dallas district, near where the town of Corcoran 
now stands. He subsequently established other butter-making plants, 



208 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

and so rapidly did the butter indiistry grow that in 1902 there were 
4500 cows in the county, supplying cream to the factories, the Kings 
County Creamery alone paying out that year to the dairymen $120,000 
for milk and cream. Finally the Hanford cheese factory was destroyed 
by tire, and the butter industry having grown more popular, absorbed 
the attention of the dairymen, and cheese making in the county has 
been since confined to small private plants, but an article of excellent 
grade is made for local consumption. 

In 1903 a company was organized in Hanford for the condensation 
of milk. A' factory was erected and equipped, hut through some fault 
in the management the project was a failure. 

The creamery business, however, has flourished until in 1911 the 
output of dairy products from the dairies of the county amounted to 
$1,574,250. There are five incorporated creameries in the county now, 
and others in prospect. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 209 



CHAPTER XXVII 
THE CITY OF HANPORD 

Hanford, the chief city and county seat of Kings county, is situated 
midway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, and the townsite was 
laid out by the Southern Pacific Railroad Company in March, 1877. 
The town was named after James Hanford, who was auditor of the 
railroad company at the time the railroad was built to this point. 
As an unincorporated town it soon became an important trading point, 
and in July, 1891, after a series of annual conflagrations, the peoj^le 
determined to incorjjorate the town and make it a city of the sixth 
class. Accordingly a petition was presented to the board of super- 
visors of Tulare county on July 10, 1891, praying for an election to 
be called for the purpose of deciding upon the subject of incorporating. 

The petition contained the description of the boundaries of the 
proposed city, and they were as follows, to wit : Beginning at a point 
thirty feet north and thirty feet west of the southeast corner of section 
36, township 18 south, range 21 east, M. D. B. and M., thence run- 
ning due north to a point thirty feet south and thirty feet west of the 
northeast corner of section 25, township 18 south, range 21 east, 
M. D. B. and M., thence due west to a point thirty feet south and 
thii'ty feet east of the northwest corner of said section 2.5, thence 
due south to a point thirty feet north and thirty feet east of the south- 
west corner of aforesaid section 36, thence due east to point of 
beginning. 

Those who petitioned for this movement were : Frank J. Walker, 
T. Gebhardt. J. H. Malone, J. Manasse, F. A. Blakeley, 0. B. Phelps, 
Dixon L. Phillips, R. G. White, S. E. Biddle, S. Rehoefer,' R. Mills, 
E. E. Manheim, F. L. Dodge, J. D. Biddle, C. R. Brown, J. J. Harlow, 
George Slight, J. T. Baker, E. E. Rusli, R. W. Musgrave, Z. D. 
Johns, X. P. Duncan, D. Gamble, J. H. Sharp. A. J. Huff, A. E. 
Chittenden, F. A. Dodge, J. D. Spencer, B. C. Bestman, W. R. Mc- 
Quiddv, B. C. Mickle, A. P. Gomes, D. L. Healy, E. Axtell, T. J. 
McQuiddv, E. P. Irwin, P. A. Hov, N. Weisbaum, K. Simon, C. B. 
Rourke, J. P. Ames. J. G. Mickle. J. G. Clanton, J. Hanley, Wm. 
Roughton, J. Weisbaum, J. R. Beekwith, P]. J. Benedict, C. R. Hawley, 
Wra. Corey, E. Weisbaum, John S. Thompson, H. G. Lacey, S. M. 
Rosenberger, R. L. Roughton, H. C. Fallin, W. H. Nyswonger, W. A. 
Ai-nold, S. M. Joiner, Charles F. Cunning, George W. King, C. J. 
Hall, C. W. Cooper, Charles King, R. Starkweather, A. H. Martin, 
R. Irwin. F. V. Dewey, H. Buck, Charles Vosburg, A. E. Gribi. M. 
C. LaFortune, J. C. Davis, E. M. Friant, Wm. McVey. Sanmel J. 
Bee, A. G. Dollenmayer, J. F. Garwood, E. Lord, H. C. Tandy. 



210 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

The election was held on Anaust 8, 1891. and resulted in the fol- 
lowing vote: For incorporation, 127; against incorporation, 47. 

ELECTIVE OFFICEKS OF THE CITY OF HANFORD FROM 1891 TO 1913 

From 1891 to 1892— Trustees : E. Axtell, B. A. Fassett, James 
0. Hickman, James Manasse and George Slight. President of the 
Board. B. A. Fassett; City Clerk. W. R. McQuiddy; Treasurer, N. 
Weisliaum ; Marshal, Wm. A. Bush. 

From 1892 to 1894 — Trustees : E. Axtell, B. A. Fassett, E. Lord, 
Richard Mills and George Slight. President of the Board, B. A. 
Fassett ; City Clerk, Edward Weisbaum ; Treasurer, Jas. 0. Hickman ; 
Marshal, Wm. A. Bush. 

From 1894 to 1896— Trustees: S. B. Hicks, J. H. Malone, R. E. 
Starkweather, E. Lord and George Slight. President of the Board, 
George Slight ; City Clerk, Frank Pryor ; Treasurer, J. 0. Hickman ; 
Marshal, H. McGinnis. 

From 1896 to 1898— Trustees : D. R. Cameron, John Ross, S. 
B. Hicks, J. H. Malone and R. E. Starkweather. President of the 
Board. S. B. Hicks; City Clerk, Frank Pryor; Treasurer. Arthur 

D. King; Marshal, H. McGinnis. 

From 1898 to 1900— Trustees : S. E. Biddle, J. G. Burgess, J. H. 
Farley, D. R. Cameron and John Ross. President of the Board, D. 
R. Cameron; City Clerk, Frank Pryor; Treasurer, A. D. King; 
Marshal, H. McGinnis. 

From 1900 to 1902— Trustees : Wm. Abbott, W. H. Camp, S. E. 
Biddle. J. G. Burgess and J. H. Farley. President of the Board, 
J. H. Burgess; City Clerk, B. W. Moore; Treasurer, A. D. King; 
Marshal, Ed. Reuck. 

From 1902 to 1904— Trustees : Wm. Abbott, Wm. Camp, J. W. 
Rhoads, Harrv Widmer and J. E. Viney. President of the Board, 
Harry Widmer; City Clerk, Jas. A. Hill; Treasurer, F. R. Hight; 
Marshal, A. M. Frederick. 

From 1904 to 1906— Trustees : W. H. Camp, E. H. Walker, J. 

E. Vinev, J. W. Rhoads and H. Widmer. President of the Board, 
Harry Widmer; City Clerk, Jas. A. Hill; Treasurer, F. R. Hight; 
Marshal, A. M. Frederick. 

From 1906 to 1908— Trustees : H. A. Beekhuis, W. H. Cam]i, 
E. H. AValker, Grant Starkweather and J. M. Dean. President of 
the Board, H. A. Beekhuis ; City Clerk, Jas. A. Hill ; Treasurer, F. R. 
Hight; Marshal, A. M. Frederick. 

From 1908 to 1910— Trustees : H. A. Beekhuis, B. L. Barney, 
David Gamble, J. M. Dean, Grant Starkweather. President of the 
Board. H. A. Beekhuis, who resigned and B. L. Barney was chosen 
president ; City Clerk, James A. Hill ; Treasurer, F. E. Hight ; Marshal, 
A. M. Frederick. 

From 1910 to 1912— Trustees : B. L. Barney, F. M. Parish, Grant 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 211 

Starkweatlier, David Gamble, A. W. Bass. President of the Board, 
B. L. Baruey; City Clerk, D. C. Williams; Treasurer, F. R. Higbt; 
Marshal, A. M. Frederick. 

From 1912 to 19 IJ— Trustees: Charles H. Coe, J. H. Dawson, 
A. W. Bass, F. M. Parish, Grant Starkweather. President of the 
Board, Charles H. Coe; City Clerk, D. C. Williams; Treasurer, F. R. 
Hight; Marshal (now appointive), Samuel Humphreys. The latter 
resigned in January, 1913, and Clarence Seaman was appointed to 
succeed him. 

The City of Hanford at this time, twenty-two years after it was 
incorporated, enjoys fifteen blocks of business streets paved with 
asphaltum concrete and curbed with granite. The city owns its own 
Holly water system for protection against fire, having one of the best 
duplicated systems of steam pumping through a system of under- 
ground water mains extending throughout the city that can be found 
in any city of its size. A volunteer fire department of thirty-five 
men is etjuijiped with auto chemical and hose truck, hand chemicals, 
etc., which were purchased in 1912 and succeeded horse-drawn ap- 
paratus. In October, 1912, the city voted bonds in the sum of $35,000 
to extend the then existing fire system, which was built in the early 
'90s and subsequently extended. At this election bonds of $80,000 
were also voted to rehabilitate a city sewer system constructed orig- 
inally in 1900 by a bond issue. In the latter year a bond election 
was held, November 20, and bonds in the sum of $50,000 were voted, 
the vote being 324 for and 109 against the bonds. A sewer farm of 
one hundred and sixty acres was purchased, the same being the north- 
west quarter of section 12, 19-21. A septic tank was there built, and 
a system of sewers, the largest size of pipe used being twelve inch 
for the outfall, was constructed. At that time, with the population 
of the city being about 2,900, the system was fairly adequate, but 
the rapid increase of population and the fact that the first sewer 
constructed was in many resi)ects improperly done, permitting of 
deterioration, in the summer of 1908 the city reconstructed the outfall 
and extended the service within the city. This proved also only a tem- 
porary relief, and the growth of population having reached the 6,000 
mark in 1912, the sewer question became a pressing one, hence the 
bonds called for and votecl in November last, as above stated. The 
contract for this sewer extension, the building of the Imhoff disposal 
plant, etc., was awarded January 28, 1913. Through a technicality 
the courts declared the bond issue invalid. 

Hanford is supplied with a city hall which is the headquarters of 
the fire department, as well as the seat of municipal government, where 
the city recorder and the city clerk have their offices in connection 
with the chamber of the board of trustees. 



212 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 



VAXISHING OF THE SALOONS 

From the time -wheu the Southern Pacitio railroad had reached 
this poiut aud Hauford was staked out, the tratfio in intoxicating 
liquors flourished as in all western towns until 1912. While the license 
policy that i^revailed in the town was perhaps as well managed 
as in any average city, there gradually grew up a sentiment that 
the liquor business was detrimental to the social welfare of the com- 
munity, although the revenue derived from the licensing of the 
traffic was considerable and helped in a large degree to defray the 
expenses of the municipal government. The religious element, as- 
sisted by others not within the churches, gradually encroached against 
the legal barriers thrown about the liquor traffic by ordinances for 
police protection, although the prime object was revenue, and in the 
winter of 1909 under the leadership of tlie ministerial association 
of the city a campaign was started and was fought out at the municipal 
election in April of 1910. One set of candidates pledged to oppose the 
saloons was nominated aud contested for the offices of trustee against 
a "business men's" ticket, not pledged, but generally supposed to be 
pro-saloon. The campaign was bitterly fought, and the election on 
April 11 resulted in the election of F. M. Parish, A. W. Bass and J. H. 
Dawson, "Good Government" or "Citizens' " candidates, over G. 
Starkweather, J. Hedgeland and C. F. F lemming, of the opposition. 

The vote was close, the average majority of the winning candi- 
dates being but thirty-five votes. The election of these men gave the 
temperance forces a majority of the board, the holdover members 
being B. L. Barney and David Gamble. Between the total vote for 
Dawson aud the total vote for Starkweather there was, however, a 
ditf erence of only seven votes in favor of Dawson. This led to a con- 
test, which resulted in favor of Starkweather in a recount before the 
superior court. Judge Mahon, of Kern county, presiding. The case 
was appealed to the supreme court aud the judgment of Mahon seat- 
ing Starkweather was affirmed, and he replaced Mr. Dawson on the 
board, thus insuring another term of the license system in the city. 

The anti-saloon forces, however, would not quit. The campaign 
was taken up again by the Anti-Saloon League of California, and the 
state legislature of 1910-11 enacted the Wyllie local option law, which 
gave the anti-saloon people a chance for another round with the 
saloons in Hauford. Petitious were circulated for an election under 
that act, aud to decide the "wet" and "dry" question in conjunction 
with the municijial election to be held on Ajiril 7, 1912. John Dawson, 
who liad been ousted by the Starkweather contest of two years previ- 
ous, and Charles II. Coe were candidates for the anti-saloon ticket, 
and S. B. Hicks and "W. R. Newport were the candidates of the oppo- 
sition ticket for trustees, although both sides were pledged to enforce 
the law on the liquor question in accordance with the expression of the 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 213 

voters. A lively and at times bitter campaign was fought out. At 
the election the total vote cast on the liquor question was 1,740 (the 
women voting under the new franchise act), and there were 753 votes 
cast for license and 987 votes cast against it. The large majority for 
the "dry" element successfully elected Messrs. Ooe and Dawson, and 
when they took their seats on the board of trustees the board inunedi- 
ately proceeded to eliminate the saloon traffic from the city. The ques- 
tion of gi'anting salaries to the members of the board of trustees was 
also endorsed liy the electors, and for the first time in the history of 
the city the trustees became salaried officials. 

The new board met and organized on April 15. Under the new 
law the city marshal became an appointed officer, and Samuel Humph- 
reys was chosen. F. E. Kilpatrick was chosen city attorney. D. C. 
Williams was elected clerk by the people, and the board appointed 
A. M. Ashley city recorder. Thus organized the first city government 
under the "dry" regime began operation. Under the provisions of 
the state law the saloons automatically went out of business ninety 
days after the people had by a majority vote so decreed, and in Han- 
ford, on the night of July 6, 1912, after existing for thirty-five years 
with a legalized saloon system, the bars were closed and the traffic was 
abandoned by the edict of the people. 

CHURCHES OF HAN FORD 

As early as 1874 a Christian Church organization was formed by 
Major T. J. McQuiddy, W. E. McQuiddy, Elder Craigie Sharp, Court- 
ney Talbot, J. M. Patterson, Sally Cotton, Welcome Fowler and others. 
This organization held meetings in Eureka schoolhouse. Later the 
place of meeting was in the Grangeville schoolhouse. In 1878 Hanford 
was chosen l)y the society as a permanent location and a church was 
built at the corner of Eighth and Brown streets. Later this church 
was rebuilt in its present convenient and commodious proportions. 

In November, 1880, the Presbyterian Church society, which had 
been organized, was given a new imjietus by Rev. N. W. Motheral, 
who was given its leadershij). He put his native al)ility and force 
into immediate action by Imilding a new church building. In this 
enterprise he was obliged to haul lumber fifty miles from the mills, 
then in operation about Tollhouse in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. 
Accordingly he engaged Julius Coe, Wesley Underwood, Ben Scrivner 
and a man named Barker, wlio formed a wagon train of five big teams 
to make the trij) to the mills for juiiiber. In Mai'cli, 188], the rliurch 
was completed and the first service held in it by the Presbyterian so- 
ciety was the funeral of Joseph Motheral, the sixteen-year-old son 
of N. W. Mothei-al, the founder of the church. Mr. Motlieral hold the 
pastorate of the church for many years, when he resigned to serve an 
appointment on the State Horticultural Commission. Rev. E. Lisle 
then served a term as pastor, at the end of which Mr. Motheral ayain 



l'14 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIPJS 

took up tlie pastorate and sei-ved uutil liis licaltli failed. The Presby- 
terian church has grown and prospered witli tliecity and count}' under 
the pastorate of the Eev. Sanders, I. B. Self, George B. Gregg, J. AV. 
Mount and John Steel. In 1912 the lot at the corner of Eighth and 
Douty streets on which the church was located was sold to the county 
for the sum of $1G,000. The church society moved the old building 
to a new location on the southwest corner of Irwin and Dewey streets. 

In the year 1880 the Methodist Church society organized, and 
1)ought an old schoolhouse, which they moved on to a lot at the south- 
east corner of Douty and Eighth streets. Here the congregation 
worshi])ed through the struggling vicissitudes of its pioneer days, 
which, as is common to all church societies, seemed at times to baffle all 
efforts to sustain it. In 1886 a new pastor came from Tennessee in the 
person of Andrew G. Parks. He was a young, energetic man, who 
took conunaud with ability and vigor. It was not without great self- 
denial and a persevei-ance at times sublime that he kept the lights 
Inuning until the dawn of lietter times and a growth in the whole 
counuunity that brought a prosperous era. About the year 1891 the 
Methodist society sold their property and relocated on the corner of 
Irwin and Park avenue, where a new and commodious church building 
was erected under the pastorshi]) of Rev. G. E. Morrison. He was 
considered a specially qualified man to plan, build and collect funds 
foi- clmi'ch building, and as such did a good job for the church here, 
but later he became a resident of Texas, where he was convicted of 
poisoning his wife and was himg. The church has since prospered 
and is supported by a substantial congregation. 

In 1880 an Ei)iscopal church was organized, the first service being 
held under Rector D. O. Kelley in the uncompleted Presbyterian 
church building. Rev. Nixon followed in the work until in 1884 Rev. 
C. S. Linsley took charge and built a comfortable church on South 
Douty street, where the society flourished under various rectors until 
the year 1911, when under Rector G. R. E. MacDonald a new brick 
church was built on the corner of North Douty and Eleventh streets. 
Mr. MacDonald was a justly popular leader and under him the church 
grew to be a leading factor among religious interests of the city of 
Hanford. His predecessor, J. S. Mayuard, was also a popular rector, 
whose work left a favorable impress on the community. 

In the year 1882 the Catholics built a mission church here on the 
corner of Seventh and Reddington streets. Services were held once a 
month for a while by Father Guerrio, a Spanish priest, located at 
Visalia. Following him were Fathers Caraspo, Smith, Murphy, Brady 
and Scher. Father Smith was the first resident priest. In 1912 Father 
Scher made plans to move the churcli ]iroperty and enlarge its accom- 
modations. Ground was secured at the corner of Douty and Florinda 
streets. The new jjrojierty will include five large buildings, a school, a 
convent, a rectory, a church and an assembly hall. The property as 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 215 

a whole will occupy sixteen lots. The Catholic church has a large 
and increasin.g following among the Portuguese and other foreign 
blood citizenship. 

The Seventh Day Advent church was first established at Lemoore 
about 1887. The second church of that denomination was formed at 
Grangeville a few years later, but about 1900, to make it more cen- 
tral for the increasing membership, it was moved to Armona. In the 
early '90s the Adventists built another church at Hanford on the cor- 
ner of Ninth and Harris streets, and in 1906 also built a church on 
the island northwest of Lemoore. The sect has about 400 members 
in the county and maintains schools in connection with their churches 
at Hanford, Armona and on the island. Elder J. W. Bagby has had 
leading charge of the work for about twelve years. 

The Church of God, at No. 315 East Eleventh street, was estab- 
lished locally about 1904 and later acquired the church property be- 
longing to the United Brethren. The society maintains services, but 
has no regular pastor. 

The First Baptist church, at No. 521 North Irwin street, was es- 
tablished on July 17, 1892. Its first pastor was I. T. Wood, and 
Thomas A. Dodge its first clerk; Moses P. Troxler, deacon. 

First Church of Christ, Scientist, was established as a society in 
1898 and as a church in 1902, with thirty-two members. W. E. Mc- 
Quiddy and Mrs. Isabella Lloyd were the first and second readers, re- 
spectively, for the first term. 

First Church of Christ was established in a new building built for 
that purpose at the corner of Irwin and Myrtle streets in 1908 with 
Major T. J. McQuiddy, S. J. AVhite and David Utterback its princi])al 
promoters, J. A. Craig being its first pastor. 

The Free Methodist church at No. 621 North Plarris street was 
established in the year 1891. Its first pastor was B. L. Knoll. It has 
a membership of forty-three and maintains regular services, class 
meetings and a Sunday school. 

The Grace Methodist Episcopal Church, South, at the corner of 
Brown and Ninth streets, was established about 1895, first holding 
its meetings in a cottage in the westei'n part of Hanford. Later the 
society built and moved into the property where they now worship. 
Their first pastor was Rev. W. E. Phillii)S. 

The African Methodist Episcopal Zion church, now located at 
South Douty and Second streets, was established about 1890 by Rev. 
Sydney Knox. The society had several years of uphill work, but 
conditions im])roved and the society maintains its work in the com- 
iHunity. 

The Second Baptist (colored) church, at South Irwin and Second 
streets, was stai'ted in 1898, its first officers being Henry Wyatt, Jolni 
Wclcher, StcpJien Sliaw. The first pastor was Rev. E. E. Bickers. 



216 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 



SCHOOLS OF KINGS COUNTY 

The educational affairs of Kings county are among its proudest 
assets. When the county was organized in 1893 there was but one 
high school, and the formation of the county was in itself an inspira- 
tion for better educational advantages. At the birth of the county 
there were twenty-nine school districts employing forty-three teachers. 
There were only two thousand census children, and there were only 
five schools emplopng more than one teacher. Of the sixteen him- 
dred pupils then enrolled in schools of the county, the one high school, 
that located at Hanford, enrolled fifty-four pupils. The school prop- 
erty of the county was estimated at less than $90,000. 

The growth of territory by annexation, and the extending of the 
cultivated area, together with the rapid settlement of the farming 
districts and the towns, has brought the school attendance up to three 
thousand two hundred in 1912. 

There are now three high schools, one at Hanford, employing ten 
teachers; one at Lemoore, emplo>-ing five teachers, and one at Cor- 
coran, employing two. The enrollment in all high schools, including 
two joint high school districts, was two hundred and twenty-four. The 
Hanford Union High School was established in 1892, the Lemoore 
High School in 1900, and the Corcoran High School in 1912. There 
were at the beginning of 1913 forty grammar school districts in the 
county, employing eighty-five teachers. The enrollment in the gram- 
mar schools was two thousand eight hundred and fifteen, with an aver- 
age daily attendance of two thousand three hundred and eighty-two. 

There were graduated from the grammar schools in 1912 one 
hundred and forty jnipils, and from the high schools thirty-seven. 
The school property of the county is now valued at $299,050. As the 
educational affairs of the state at large advance the general effect is 
noted in the building of modern school buildings, and the coimty has 
today very excellent country school buildings and the city schools 
are also modern in design and facilities for carrying on the work. 
Since the county was formed there have been three different county 
superintendents in office, viz. : James A. Graham, Cliarles McCourt and 
Mrs. N. E. Davidson, the latter being the i)resent iucumbeiit. 

HANFOED FREE PUBLIC LIBBAEY 

The city of Hanford possesses a free ])ublic library which today 
is the central library of a county library system, the latter being 
established in 1912. Tlie history of the movement which finally 
developed a free city library and afterwards extending its benefits 
and influences county-wide, began back in 1890, when a meeting of 
citizens of the then unincorporated town was held December 27 
and a reading room association was formed. This association 
opened a reading room on May 26, 1891, in a wooden building on 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 217 

Seventli street between Douty and Irwin streets. Mrs. M. A. Harlow 
was chosen president of tlie association and presided at the meeting. 
Mrs. Nellie Henderson (now Mrs. Malone) was the first librarian. 
At the meeting refreshments were served, and interested citizens 
broniiht books and formed the nuclens of a library. After that 
throngh the means of donations, socials and concerts sufficient funds 
were raised to maintain the reading room, pay rentals and a little 
something to the librarian. 

In May, 1892, after Ilanford had been incorporated, the reading 
room control was transferred to the city authorities and a library 
board was selected by the city trustees, the selection being as follows : 
Mesdames D. L. Phillips, R. G. White, N. Abrams, J. W. Barbour, 
and W. V. Buckner. Miss Laura Lemon was employed as librarian. 
In a rented building the library was conducted by this board, and in 
Septeml)er, 1902, aiiiilication was made to Andrew Carnegie for a gift 
of money with which to establish a liltrary. The application was 
for $15,000. and Carnegie ottered $10,000. This was not considered 
sufficient by the ladies. A second request was forwarded to Mr. 
Carnegie, and he raised his donation to $12,500. This was accepted 
by the library trustees, and they set about securing a site. After 
considerable discussion, which brought out no little contention, the 
Kutner-Goldstein Company offered to the city a site on East Eighth 
street where the present library is situated, and the same was pur- 
chased. In connection with the disposal of the lots the Kutner- 
Goldstein Company pledged the city $500 worth of books as a gift as 
soon as the new Carnegie building was finished. 

Following the decision of the city authorities to purchase the 
site referred to, members of the library board dissatisfied with the 
selection of the site, and backed by other citizens, sued out an injunc- 
tion in the courts to jirevent the acceptance of the site by the city. 
The case was heard in the sujierior court. Judge Austin, of Fresno, 
presiding, and the injimction was denied. An appeal was taken and 
on January 31, 1905, the ai)pellate court affirmed the decision of the 
lower court, sustaining the action of the city board. This led to the 
resignation of the ladies, who comprised the library board. They ha<l, 
however, secured plans foi- the new library building, which they had 
on file. 

The city trustees then appointed a new board composed of men 
to carry forward the library work. The new board selected consisted 
of Fred A. Dodge, chairman; P. M. Norboe, secretary; Dr. J. A. 
Moore, Z. D. Johns and U. S. Bock. 

This board immediately went to work, slightly altered the plans 
on hand for the building, and let the contract to David Gamble for 
the erection of tiic building which was to be of artificial stone or 
concrete block, 'i'iic building work proceeded and on August 12. 



218 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

1905, the cornerstone was laid with sini]>le ceremony, consisting of a 
brief address In- City Clerk James A. Hill. AVithin the cornerstone 
were placed copies of the Hanford Daily Sentinel, copies of the 
Hanford Senii-Wcrkli/ Journal, a complete set of the then existing- pity 
ordinances, a card l)earing the names of tlie first board of city trnstees, 
viz.: B. A. Fassett, E. Axtell, J. 0. Hickman, George Slight and J. 
Manasse, and the first city clerk, AV. R. McQniddy, and many otlier 
relics of the early history of the town. The construction of the new 
building progressed, and on February 6, 1906, the library board met 
and set February 22 as tlie date for the dedication of the new building. 

The arrangements were carried out, and at the connnodious and 
well-furnished Carnegie library building with a number of fairly 
well-filled book stacks, on the night of February 22, the peojjle 
assembled for a brief program. Fred A. Dodge, chairman of the 
library board, called the assemblage to order and introduced Prof. 
E. H. Walker, principal of the Hanford TTnion High School, who 
made an address on "The Function of a Public Library." Miss 
Margaret E. Dold, the librarian, also gave an address on "The 
Library and its Wants." Chairman Dodge then on behalf of the 
board of library trustees presented the completed building to the 
city of Hanford. Secretary P. M. Norboe made an address in which 
he presented the financial statement of the construction showing tliat 
the building had been erected and made ready for pulilic use for 
the sum of $12,-t72.99, leaving a balance from the Carnegie gift in 
the treasury amounting to $27.01. In his remarks Secretary Norboe 
gave credit to library trustee, Z. D. Johns, who had freely given his 
time in supei'intending the construction, for assisting in enabling the 
board to complete the building within the amount appropriated. 

The new building was accepted on behalf of the city by Han-y 
Widmer, chairman of the board of city trustees, in which he compli- 
mented the library lioard on tlie excellent work done. 

Since th.e dedication of the library it has grown and become a 
most serviceable and prized institution in the city. Miss Dold served 
a number of years as librarian. She was succeeded by Miss Norma 
Burrell, who served until in the fall of 1911, when she was succeeded 
by Miss Bessie Hermann. 

In 1912 Miss Hermann successfully undertook to extend the 
sco]3e of the Hanford library and make it the center of a county 
library system. She brought the matter before the city trustees and 
the library board, and those bodies acting with the county board of 
supervisors, carried out the plan under the existing state laws, and 
now the institution is county-wide, having branch libraries at Cor- 
coran, Armona, Guernsey, Grangeville, Lemoore and Hardwick. Tlie 
library is suppoi-lcd from the ]iublic treasury. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 219 

CHAPTER XXVIII 
LEMOORE 

Lemoore, located on tlie Soutlicni Pacific Railroad, nine miles 
west of Hanford, tlie county seat, is the second city in size in tlie 
connty, liavin,<>' an estimated i)Oitnlation of 2500. It was founded by 
Dr. Lavern Lee Moore, who located with his family on land where 
the city now stands in April, 1871. The following August Dr. Moore 
surveyed a few acres, and ten of them were staked out as town lots, 
where business soon was set up by the pioneers of the town. Dr. 
Moore christened the young town Latache. The settlers then had 
neither railroad or mail facilities and the postoffice at Grangeville 
was the nearest point from which postal accommodations were 
enjoyed. Soon Dr. Moore petitioned the department at Washington 
for the establishment of a postoffice, and a new name was selected 
for the place by abbreviating the middle name and combining it 
with the last name of the founder and calling the new ]iostoffice 
Lemoore. Mr. Moore died Se])tember 11, 1898, at the town he 
founded. 

The early l)usiness men of Lemoore were: J. II. Fox, B. K. 
Sweetland, Max Lovelace, A. Mooney, D. Brownstone, John Heinlen, 
R. Scally, Justin Jacobs, G. W. FoUett, John Hayes, Benjamin 
Hamlin, C. W. Barrett, Amos M. Ayers, Dr. L. M. Lovelace, A. 8. 
Mapes, E. Erlanger, George W. Randall, Dr. N. P. Duncan, H. 
Larish, R. E. McKenna, the latter serving as postmaster, receiving 
his appointment in 1886. F. M. Powell, now postmaster, is another 
one of the early men identified with the city. 

The Southern Pacific Railroad entered the town in 1S77 and the 
growth of the town has been steady, the greatest strides lia\ing 
been made, however, since the creation of Kings county. 

Lemoore was incorporated as n city of the sixth class in June, 
1900. and has a nmnicipal water and sewer system. The lirst grammar 
school was organized in Latache (now Ijemoore) in 187;!, and a chea]) 
school building was erected on two acres of land donated to the 
district (then called Lake) by a Mr. Armstrong. The building was 
eighteen by thirty feet and was dedicated with a "couutiy dance" 
on one December night in 187.'!. Tlu^ iii'st teacher was a Mr. Siiiipson, 
and the forty to fifty iiu|)ils who attended this first school came 
from the surrounding country, some l)eing residents of the Kingston 
country on Kings river to the northeast. The citizens of Lemoore 
evidenced a commendable pride in their ])ublic schools when in 1887 
a new $10,000 school building was erected. In 1885 the name of 
the district was changed from Ijake to Lemoore, which name it now 



220 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

bears. In the year 1912 there was erected a magnificent new grammar 
school building at a cost of $40,000. A very substantial high scliool 
building was erected in 1910. 

The city is well supplied with churches, i)ulilic halls, etc. There 
are two banking institutions, and two weekly newspapers, Tlie Repub- 
lican and The Leader. 

The rich soil and the diversified farming interests with amjile 
irrigating facilities surrounding Lemoore insure continued substan- 
tial growth. The leading industries uj^on which the city relies are 
dairying, fruit raising, raisins, wine and general agriculture. 



CHAPTER XXIX 

EVOLUTION OF THE SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY 

(An address by John G. Covert, Su]ierior Judge of Kings County, 

Before Members of the Supervisors' Convention.) 

In speaking today of the evolution of the San Joacjuin Valley 
I shall mean the industrial and social development, and I shall not 
ilse the word evolution in a technical sense, nor as a geologist would 
use it. I shall direct my remarks towards the unfolding of the 
potentialities of the valley and its development during the last half 
century. I shall further ]i]'emise my remarks by briefly defining 
and outlining the territory which in my o])inion it comprises : 

Beginning at a ])oint a few miles south of the city of Bakersfield, 
where the Tehachajn Mountains, a spur of the Sierra Nevada, join 
the Tejon Mountains, a s])ur of the Coast Range, and thence extending 
in a northwesterly direction a distance of about three hundred miles 
to a point just north of the city of Stockton, varying in width from 
forty to sixty-five miles, and containing approximately 7,500,000 
acres, lies one of the most fertile and pros])erous valleys in the world, 
and it constitutes and is known as the San Joaquin Valley. 

So far as I am familiar with history, the San Joaquin Valley 
was first seen by the eyes of white men about March 30, 1772. A few 
days before that date an expeditiou had set out from the Mission 
Monterey headed by Pedro Fages and Father Crespi on a tour of 
exploration. Padre Juuipero, the famous Franciscan missionary, 
was at that time in charge of the Mission Monterey, and it was at his 
instigation the ex]iedition was undertaken. The small i^arty headed 
by Pedro Fages and leather Cresjii found their way without adventure 
to the waters of Suisun Bay, and then eastward along its southern 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 221 

border, until they reached a point near Mount Diablo, where tlie 
niagnihcent river and valley that was afterwards known as the San 
Joaquin was presented to their admiring view. At that time, doubtless 
in honor of the patron saint of the Franciscans, the river was called 
San Francisco, and it was not until several years later, probably 
sometime between 1796 and 1813, that the name of San Joaquin 
was given to this magnificent stream. The honor of bestowing this 
name upon the river, from which the valley subsequently took its 
name, is credited to Gabriel Moraga, a doughty Spanish soldier, who 
lead some troops into the northern end of this valley about that time 
in i)ursuit of hostile Indians. Just when the name San Joaquin 
was bestowed upon this river and valley and by whom is involved 
in uncertainty, Init it is a fact that for over a hundred vears this 
great valley and river have l)een known by that name. 

Mount Diablo, by some supposed to be an extinct volcano, a peak 
in the Coast Range Mountains, stands sentinel like just off the 
southwestern extremity of the valley, and from its top, a height of 
about four thousand feet, may be obtained a most excellent view of 
the valley and river. This mountain has been adopted by the United 
States as a datum point for the purpose of sectionalization of the 
lands of the central part of the state, and there is hardly a deed or 
other written instrument affecting land in the San Joaquin Valley 
which does not bear the familiar legend "Mount Diablo Base and 
Meridian." The expedition sent out by Padre Junipero in 1772 
seems to have been the last effort ujion the part of the Franciscans 
to explore this territory, and so far as I know, no attempt was ever 
made to foi;nd a mission, although there were some Indians in the 
valley and in the Sierra Nevada Mountains on the east. 

The San Joaquin Valley first began to attract the attention of 
the American peoj^le in the days of '49. The discovery of gold by 
.John Marshall was a signal for a rush to the Pacific Coast by a class 
of energetic and daring men, whose efficiency as pioneers has never 
been excelled, if ever equalled. The lure of gold, stories of wonderful 
opportunities, and the appeal of a new country brought men to 
California by the thousands. Whatever may have been their intention 
aliout permanently residing here, when they set out ujion their 
journey westwaj-d, once here, the charm of climate and scenery 
claimed them forever after. The men who came here in those days 
came to dig gold. They turned their faces towards the mines. A 
plodding agricultural jmrsuit would not satisfy them. Many of them 
had abandoned good farms and the occupations of their fathers for 
the fascination of gold digging, and nothing could divert them from 
this occupation. On their way to the mines many passed over the 
fertile lands of the valley, and its possibilities attracted their attention 
and ai)pealed to them, even in their feverish rush to the gold diggings. 



222 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Years later wlieu disappointment came, as it comes to so many who 
hunt fortune in mines, their thoughts turned back to the valley 
with its opportunities, and hundreds of the miners became farmers; 
some of their youth and strength was expended to be sure, but still full 
of energy and hope they determined to wrest from the bosom of 
the valley with the plow the fortune they could not dig from the 
bowels of the mountains with the spade. There was some farming 
done about Stockton in the early '50s. Farm produce commanded 
a big price and found a ready market among the miners. 

The first great business or industry of the valley, however, was 
the cattle business, interspersed to some extent by sheep raising. 
The mild short winters, the abundance of grass that grew upon 
the plains, and the many streams of water made the San Joaquin 
Valley an ideal grazing country, and the plains at one time were 
covered from Stockton to Bakerstield with cattle. These were the 
days of cattle kings. Their herds roamed and grazed at will, save 
the occasional round-u}t or rodeo, when the calves were marked 
and bra-nded and the cattle tit for beef were cut out and driven to 
the nearest sliipping point or market. During the period when the 
cattle business was supreme in the San Joaquin Valley, Major Domo 
and his crew of vaqueros played a i>rominent part of the drama 
of life. Here in this valley were developed the most skillful and 
daring riders in the world; also the most expert men with the lasso 
or riata. Tliese were still days of picturesque and romantic life in 
California. The vaquero with his beautifully decorated Mexican 
saddle, with its famous Visalia tree, that is now known in every 
cow country west of the Mississippi, his 'silver-mounted bridle and 
spurs, riding easily and gracefully, was an object of admiration 
and emulation. There were few boys in those days who did not 
intend to become vaqueros when they grew u]i. The horse and saddle 
called to them like the ship calls to the boy bred beside the sea. 
Before passing the vaquero I will say a word or two for his noble 
mount — the California mustang. There have been horses that could 
run faster but never a horse that could run further; never a horse 
that could live on less forage and pick it himself, often from ]iasture 
already closely cropped; never a horse with a nobler heart, nor that 
would respond more quickly to rein and s]iur than the tough, nervv 
little mustang that did the work on the cattle ranges and now has 
passed away in the process of evolution like his companion, the 
vaquero. Sheep grazing was an industry at about the same time, 
or a little later than when the cattle business was at its height. 
The same climatic conditions and fertile plains that attracted cattle 
men were equally inviting to sheep men. This was prosiac and 
far less attractive business than the cattle industry. 

Shee|) licnling was done on foot and attending conditions were 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 223 

such that it generally was the last resort of the wage earner. 
However, as a business it probably paid as well or even better 
than the more attractive business of cattle raising. There was always 
some antipathy between cattle men and sheep men, which seems to 
be found in every place where those two industries come in contact 
upon the range, for it is a well-recoguized fact among stock men that 
cattle will not graze upon a range over which sheep have been driven 
if they can avoid it. It appears that some odor from the wool or 
body of the sheep attaches to the grass which causes it to be offensive 
to the nostrils and palates of the bovine. 

Wheat farming was the next great industry that appeared in 
the San Joaquin Valley. This business was the thin edge of the 
entering wedge that displaced the stock men and drove them back 
step by step until the only refuge left them was the remote and less 
desirable land for cultivation, also the Spanish grants, vast tracts of 
land which had during the time of Spanish sovereignty in this state 
been granted to certain Spanish settlers, and had been in turn 
recognized by Mexico and by the United States when California was 
finally ceded to our government. The humble yet ])owerful fence 
began to appear. It was no longer possible to travel in the direction 
which fancy or business suggested. Roads and trails began to turn 
at right angles, and fences marked a line over which one may no 
longer freely pass. Stock grazing, the first great industry of the 
valley, now had in a measure passed and in its place came wheat 
farming. In the earlier days in California it seemed everytiiing 
took its size and character from the lofty mountains, great trees 
and valleys. The wheat farms were no exceptions. They were of 
great size and were operated upon a gigantic scale. Farms consisting 
of several thousand acres of land were not infrequent, and as might 
be supposed it required hundreds of horses and mules and scores of 
men to ])erform the necessary work in carrying on the business of 
those ranches. The plains with an average annual rainfall would 
])roduce great crojis of grain yielding from fifteen to as high as 
seventy bushels per acre, the crojts varying from year to year in 
accordance with the rainfall and climatic conditions. Some localities 
too were more productive of certain crops than others. Wheat raised 
in the San Joarpiin Valley was generally of an excellent (piality, 
and was considered to be among the best milling wheat in the world. 
The extensive fields, llic level lands, the character of the soil and 
dry climate made possible cultivation and harvesting by methoils 
more rapid and economical than thus far had evei" been used in any 
(iflici- jilace. The cradle and the reaper and the single i)low were 
too slow for farming in the San J(ia(|uin Valley. Imjilements and 
machinery adapted to the necessity of the time were rapidly invented 
or introduced from other places and these were improved upon and 



■224 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

perfected until a hisyh degree of efficiency -was reached; as evidenced 
by the great gang pk)ws and combined harvesters and other machines 
of like nature now familiar to all farmers of this great valley. 

For about thirty years wheat or grain farming held sway. Then 
the unceasing repetition of crops, together with indifferent cultivation, 
began to tell and grain raising no longer paid as it did in the earlier 
days. Summer fallowing and irrigation were resorted to. This 
was found to be of great aid in the production of crops; but even 
then the land would not yield as it had in former years, and the 
profits from wheat raising, as a general thing, steadily grew less. 
During all this time immigration had continued and the population 
of California, and incidentally the San Joaquin Valley, was rapidly 
growing. New men with new ideas api^eared upon the scene. The 
depreciation of ])rofits in grain raising caused farmers to consider 
other crops. Fruit and wine began to attract more attention. Bees 
and poultry were found to yield large profits on small investments 
and with little care. Alfalfa was introduced and that forage was 
found well adapted to the valley. The large farm no longer paid. 
The owners, with a few notable exceptions, began to divide and sub- 
divide their holdings. The ]irofits from trees and vines were found 
to be immense. Fruit orchards, vineyards and alfalfa pastures began 
rapidly to surplant grain fields. There followed a rapid development 
in the wine, raisin and cui-ed fruit industry. The alfalfa pasture 
stimulated dairying and the live stock business. Experience, the best 
of all teachers, soon taught the farmers the variety of crops and fruit 
that was best adapted to his soil; the breed of cows best suited 
for the dairy; the kind of horses, hogs and poultry that made the 
best returns ; and having learned, as rapidly as circumstances would 
permit, they began to weed out the less desirable and le'ss profitable, 
and to replace them with the kind best suited to the valley. Now 
we had reached what we might call the third epoch or lap in the 
development of the industries of the San Joaquin Valley. 

Blossoming trees and budding vines in the spring, followed by 
a bounteous crop in the summer, appeared where once wheat and 
barley had grown. The green fields of spring and the brown stubble 
fields of fall had given way to fragrant and gorgeous blooms, golden 
fruit and pleasing autumn tints. Along the foothills of the Sierras 
was found a warm jirotected region, generally referred to as the 
thermal belt, upon which oranges, lemons and kindred fruit grew 
luxuriantly and ripened early. The population was still increasing 
rapidly. Thousands of pretty and comfortable cottages and bunga- 
lows, with now and then large and commodious houses that might 
properly in many instances be called mansions, began to apjiear 
everjTvhere, affording happy and comfortal)le homes to the people 
of the vallev. The cattle men and the wheat farmers, in manv 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 225 

instances, had looked upon the San Joaquin ^'alley as a place for 
extensive business operations in their particular lines; but gave little 
attention to it as a home for their families. The farmer now began 
to build with the intention of spending and ending his days upon 
the farm, and with a i^roud hope that when he jiassed away that his 
property would atford a home for his posterity. Accordingly he 
built with the design of procuring to his family all the advantages 
and comforts that his prosperous condition afforded. 

As I stated before, the San Joaquin Valley comprises approx- 
imately 7,500,000 acres. Of this about 500,000 acres are planted to 
fruit trees, vines and alfalfa. This leaves over 7,000,000 acres of 
the valley yet devoted to wheat raising and grazing; and among 
this latter portion are found thousands of acres of the very best 
land of the valley. Lack of irrigation water from natural streams 
is the chief cause of the lack of development. This condition is now 
being rapidly overcome by means of pumping plants, of which I 
shall say a word later. Horses and mules, beef, pork, mutton, wool, 
honey and poultry are also industries that pay exceedingly well. 
Wine of recent years has grown to be one of the principal industries 
of the San Joaquin Valley, the annual yield or produce of this 
commodity ))eing about 225,000 tons, and is worth ap])roximately 
$2,250,000'. 

These respective industries not only \deld magnificent incomes 
upon the investments and repays well the efforts and labor of the 
farmer, but they atford remunerative and congenial em])loyment to 
thousands of men, women and children. The children of the valley 
are afforded unusual opportunities for finding light and paying 
occupation by reason of tlie fruit harvest coming in the summer 
during the school vacations. In order to take care of the annual 
fruit crojis it has been necessary to establish in the different cities 
and towns and convenient shii^ping points great packing houses and 
canneries, which, when installed with machinery and facilities for 
properly curing and packing the fruit, afford one of the principal 
industries of the urbane life of the valley. All tliese years on the 
very edge of the San Joaquin Valley had been hidden away a treasure 
we little dreamed we had — petroleum oil. Though some hint of its 
presence had been given by seepage that appeared on the surface 
as tar springs or like manifestations, we never expected to find this 
ideal fuel in the great and paying quantities that we now have it. 
We were mostly farmers and we did not look deeper than the fertile 
surface for our opportunities. Again new men and new ideas made 
themselves known. Prospect wells were drilled and oil was struck. 
Almost like magic a forest of towers sprang upon the several disti-icts 
where oil had been discovered. A fever of excitement almost as 
great as that caused by the discovery of gold now took hold of 



226 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

the peojile, and the development of the oil industry of this valley 
was so rapid that those who took an active part conld scarcely 
realize the rapidity with which this business grew. The discovery 
of oil came at an opportune time. The po])ulation was growing, 
capital was accumulating, and there was need of some outlet for 
surplus energy. The fuel of the valley was growing scarce. Industries 
were gi'owing rapidly. The steam and gas engine was coming more 
and more into use, and a chea]) and plentiful fuel was the most 
necessary factor in the industrial situation, and its discovery solved 
what might liave been a serious ]>roblem. 

If the oil fields of the San Joaquin Valley should in the course 
of time become exhausted the jieople have learned a great lesson, 
and the lack of fuel will be provided against by planting forests 
of trees adapted to this purpose. Tliis precaution, together with 
the great source of electric power in the Sierras will forever settle 
the question of fuel and power so far as we are concerned. The 
oil wells yield so abundantly that if the consumption was restricted to 
this valley we could not consume it in ages. But great pipe lines 
reaching from the oil fields of the valley across the Coast Range 
Mountains leading to Point Richmond, Monterey and Port Harford 
carry the oil night and day from the fields to those deep water i")orts, 
and huge steamers docked beside the wliarf will load as conveniently 
and readily as the locomotive tender takes on water at a siding. In 
addition to the pipe lines great trains of cars carry oil daily to the 
many points that are eager to i^rocure this most excellent fuel. Tlie 
oil industry has added vastly to the wealth of the valley and ])rovided 
employment for thousands, and has made many an enterjjrising man 
wealthy beyond the most amliitious dreams of his youth. 

From that day in 1772 when the little expedition headed by Pedro 
Fages and Father Crespi set out from the Mission Monterey u]i to 
the present time, transportation has been an important factor in 
the develoi^ment of the valley. All our progress and evolution 
especially in the lieginning was not accomplished without hardships 
and exertion. All the cattle men and most of the miners found their 
way across the valley on horse-back and their camp equiimients were- 
carried u])on the backs of horses or nuiles. This means of trans- 
portation ser\'ed for awhile, but increased ])opulation and developmeni 
called for gi-eater facilities. This was supplied by the stage and 
freight teams; augmented greatly by the navigation of the San 
Joaquin river and its tributaries. The stage lines at one time fairly 
well covered the \-ailey, and one could reach by their means all the 
principal towns and mining districts south of Stockton. Along the 
same roads upon which the stages plied their traffic also traveled 
the great freight teams, that carried supplies and provisions to the 
mines and interior towns. These teams sometimes consisted of as 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES .227 

many as tweuty-fonr horses or mules, and as high as four or five 
w;iii,-ons coupled in train. The staj^es and freighters found all tliey 
could do to handle the business of the day. The fiat-bottomed stern- 
wheel river boats with huge liarges in tow plied up and down the 
San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Tuolumne rivers as far as they 
were navigable, and these crafts, too, found occupation for all their 
tonnage and passenger accommodations. Railroad companies were 
not slow in appreciating ,the opportunities of the Pacific coast, and 
they built and extended their lines into this state. With the appear- 
ance of railroads in the San Joaquin Valley trans])ortation under- 
went a rapid evolution. The stage witli its galloping horses and 
marvelously skilled drivers, together with the freight teams, were 
relegated to the raountaift districts and less accessible regions. River 
navigation was gradually aliandoned. The railroads covered their 
territory and competition i;nder the attending conditions rendered 
the steamboat lousiness unprofitable, consequently steamboat com- 
panies practically withdrew from all points of operation south of 
Stockton. The first railroad in the valley was down its center on 
the eastern side of the San Joaquin river. This line was built by 
the Central Pacific Railroad Company ,but was afterward taken up by 
the Southern Pacific Company, which has owned and ojjerated it 
ever since, and after it entered into the valley it was rapidly pushed 
on over the Tehachapi Mountains, with inany tunnels and its cele- 
brated loop, until it readied Los Angeles, and thence turned east- 
ward, connecting the San Joaquin with the northern and southern 
part of the state and with the eastern states. 

From this pioneer line down the valley several short lines of 
feeders were constructed, which have proved highly valuable in the 
progress and development of the territory which they covered. Later 
a line was laid down the valley on the western side of the San Joaquin 
river, beginning at Tracy and connecting with the original line at 
Goshen Junction, and later on again at Fresno. 

About 1893 there was constructed from San Francisco to Bakers- 
field what was known as the San Francisco and San Joaquin Valley 
railroad. This was later on taken by the Santa Fe and has become 
a part of its great system. Of recent years the oil industr\' and 
the rapid development among the foothill regions have demanded 
greatly increased railroad and transportation facilities, and this in 
a measure has been met by spurs from the Southern Pacific and 
certain inde])endent companies that have organized and built short 
accommodation railroads in different ])laces in the valley, it is 
evident that the rapid growth and i)0])ulation and development of 
the San Joaquin Valley will not only afTord, but will demand, greativ 
increased transportation facilities. Probably there is no jilace in 
the world wlicic railioads can l)e built and operated as cheaply as 



228 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

here. Tracks may be laid iu any district and to any point within 
this valley by practically following the contour of the earth. The 
general level of the plains is such as to require but very little grading, 
and few cuts and the constructing of the roadbed may be done by 
plows and scrapers operated by horses, and at a cost per mile that 
is as cheap and probably less than the same work can be done for 
at any other place in the United States, or the world for that matter. 
I venture to say that iu building a railroad from Bakerstield to 
Stockton along any line within the confines of the Sau Joaquin Valley 
it will not be necessary to resort to drilling or blasting and it is a 
certainty that no tunneling would be required. 

The Sierra Nevada Mountains on the east contain potentially 
millions of horsepower that may be converted into electricity, and 
by means of a slender wire suspended from poles or towers placed 
at intervals of eighty to two hundred yards apart conducted to all 
points where it may be desired to apply the power. I believe that 
for the purpose of operating railroad trains, electric power, if not too 
costly in the generation thereof, is considerably cheaper than steam 
or other motors. Beyond a question it is the most economical and 
best adapted power to railroading. Thus we have united two very 
important factors in railroad transportation that will be an estimable 
advantage; cheap fuel and cheap construction. As a result, in time 
the valley will be laced by electric lines, upon which will be operated 
highly efficient and rapidly moving trains. People living in the 
most remote parts will be put in easy reach of business centers and 
the coast, and San Francisco will be only about one-half day's journey 
away. Perishable produce, such as sweet cream and table fruits of 
a delicate nature, can readily be shipped to the markets of the 
cities and points on the coast. 

Transportation by rail again can be augmented by transporta- 
tion upon the rivers, if the state or the federal government should 
see fit to dredge the natural streams of the valley and remove the 
snags and other obstructions therefrom. More than that it would be 
an easy engineering feat to build a canal from Bakersfield, connecting 
with the navigable waters of the San Joaquin, and by a system of 
locks and reservoirs navigation could be had from the southern end of 
the valley to the waters of San Francisco bay. There would be some 
question as to the advisability of establishing navigation to this 
extent for this reason: The electric power that may be so readily 
developed and the facility with which railroads may be constructed 
in the valley will proliably cause railroads to be so numerous and 
competition so sharp that the public would never resort to the 
necessarily slow and tedious transpoi-tation by water that would 
attend canal and river navigation. 

A very cursory mention of the San Joaquin Valley requires some 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 229 

consideration of the mountains on either side and in the course 

of my remarks I have referred to them. But I desire to say a word 

or two more concerniu«' the mountains, which are so closely related 

to this valley. Our warm, dry climate is a most important factor 

in this valley. Doubtless this condition is brought about largely by 

the Coast Range Mountains that stand on our west as a wind break 

and a barrier to the fogs and cold atmosphere of the coast. If it 

were not for this range probably our rainfall would be heavier, 

but the cold fogs and chilling winds of the Pacific would reach us 

and if they did several of our principal industries would be seriously 

affected if not entirely destroyed. The raisin and cured fruit 

industry could not successfully be carried on if it were not for the 

warm dry climate peculiar to the San Joaquin Valley and it is 

highly probable that alfalfa would not grow as luxuriantly as it 

does now. Again the climate is peculiarly adapted to stock-raising. 

These Coast Range Mountains bej'ond question were a wise provision 

of Providence, and have added special advantages in the way of 

climatic conditions, notwithstanding they increase the summer heat 

and lessen the winter rainfall. On the east lies what probably are 

the grandest mountains in the world, at least a Californian may lie 

pardoned for so designating them. There we find the wonderland of 

California. Mount Whitney, the highest peak in the United States, 

surrounded with neighboring peaks, scarcely less in height, the 

Yosemite Valley with its unrivaled falls, the mag-nificent Kings River 

canyon, the great forests of pines and the celebrated giant redwoods 

or sequoias find their abode in the Sierras that skirt the eastern 

border of the valley, and are so closely related to it that without 

indulging in iwetic license we may consider them, if not a part, an 

inseparable complement of the San Joaquin. These mountains 

constitute a gigantic and beautiful reservoir erected by a beneficent 

Providence for the purjiose of moistening and fertilizing the plains 

of the valley. Great towering peaks and abysmal canyons covered 

with gigantic trees and thickly-matted brush and undergrowth gather 

and conserve the snows of winter. In the sjiring and summer comes 

the sun and beats alike upon the valley and the mountains and as 

the plains become parched and dried and as the growing trees 

and grass suck up the moisture from the soil and from the air the 

frozen snows of winter are released upon the mountainside and 

begin their journey through scenery the grandest and most lieautiful 

imaginable, through forests of pines and redwoods, by flowers and 

delicate ferns, over rocks and through rills, uniting and ever uniting 

in rivulets and creeks, and in each union growing stronger until 

finally they rush in a mighty river upon the arid plains, carrying life 

and drink to thousands of thirsty acres. 

These streams, deep and with precipitous banks, at first gradually 
1.1 



230 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTlP:s 

approaoli tlie surface of the land so that it is freciuently possible to 
divert water from them and spread it upon the laud within two or 
three miles from the point of diversion. The loose loamy nature 
of the soil and comi)aratively level surface render ditch-buildiu,!>- in 
this valley an easy task, and particularly well adapted to irrigation. 
Many of the pioneer irrigation ditches were built without the 
assistance of an engineer or even the use of a transit. Many of the 
farmers had had experience in hydraulic mining, which rendered 
them peculiarly qualified in the art of constructing dams and ditches, 
and often the only capital used was the daily labor of the farmers 
and their livestock, generously assisted by the business men of the 
valley towns who extended them credit for the necessities of life 
while engaged in this development. When the settlers of the valley 
began to go back from the streams to find homes, water was the 
first problem for them to solve, and like Jacob they dug wells. The 
first wells were almost entirely dug with the pick and shovel. They 
ranged in depth from twelve to as much as two hundred feet, 
depending on the location, and were surface wells, that it to say, 
the wells were only deepened to the first water. Near the streams 
and particularly on the east side of the San Joaquin river and 
the southern part of the valley siirface water can generally be 
reached at a depth of twenty-five to thirty feet, while on the west 
side and especially near the foothills the depth of water was greatly 
increased, sometimes requiring a well of over a hundred feet in 
depth. There wells were dug with a shovel, and the earth excavated 
was hoisted to the surface by means of a barrel sawed in the middle, 
to which a bale was affixed. To this was tied a rope of sufficient 
length, and the power used was either a windlass turned by a man 
on the surface or sometimes by hitching a horse to the end of the 
rope. When the water was reached it was hoisted by the same crude 
methods. The half barrel that served the purpose of hoisting the 
earth and rocks was converted into a bucket for drawing water. 

Since those days when wells were dug with spades there have 
been great im])rovements made. They are no longer dug, but are 
bored or drilled with efficient machinery operated by steam or 
gasoline ))ower, and are driven to a depth averaging from fifty to 
eighty feet, which results in a jilentiful flow of pure water. 

Artesian wells in most parts of the valley are readily develo]ied 
and the natural flow from them furnishes an abundance of water for 
livestock and domestic ]nir|)oses, and frequently will irrigate as many 
as from eiglity to three hundred acres of land yearly. Electric power 
and gasoline engines have made irrigation liy ])umping feasible, 
and it has been discovered that subterranean streams are found in 
nearly all parts of the valley carrying water sufficient for the purpose 
of irrigating the surface of the lands under which they lie, and now 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 231 

hundreds of wells are being develoi:)ed and pumping plants installed, 
which are an immense aid to the present system of irrigation and 
will cover tliousands of acres that cannot be reached by water from 
the natural streams. 

Stej) by step and hand in hand with cooperation and harmony, 
the urbane and rural evolution of tliis valley has progressed. The 
valley is dotted with many prosperous cities and towns, not so exten- 
sive in population, but energetic and in-ogressive in the extreme. 
Paved streets, electric lights, gas jilants, excellent water systems, 
magnificent i)ublic Iniildings and sanitary drainage are to be found 
in all of them. The amount of business transacted is startling as 
compared witli cities of the same ]io])ulation of other places. A town 
of five thousand inliabitants will transact more business and the 
banks will represent more capital than in other places having a 
population of twenty-five thousand. While speaking upon tlie subject 
of towns and public improvements I desire to congratulate the entire 
people of the San Joaquin Valley upon the magnificent courthouse 
that has just been conijileted in the county of Kern. Its beautiful 
architectural lines, extensive proportions, light and airy rooms and 
great corridors are certainly a source of pride and pleasure to the 
people of this valley. I particularly congratulate the peoi)le of this 
county upon their magnificent building, which is a noble tribute to 
their energy and progressiveness and faith in their county, and 
a monument to the efiliciency and ability of the board of supervisors, 
who served the jieople so well in its construction. 

I have said something of the evolution of the valley, made brief 
mention of the progress and development of the different industries, 
and in a poor way directed your attention to the wonderful op]ior- 
tunities and advantages that may be found here; and now I want 
to say a word for the actors, for the men and women who so well 
and faithfully ])layed their ])art in this drama of evolution, and 
whose efforts brought about this great development and progress. 
Back in the days of "Forty-nine" and for a number of years there- 
after there were two ways of reaching California, one was by water 
around Cape Horn, or by a shorter but equally as perilous way 
across the Isthmus and then u]) the coast to San Francisco, or the 
other was across the i)lains by means of the slow moving emigrant 
trains. Either of those routes was fraught with grave danger and 
many hardships and deprivations. The perils of a voyage in the 
old-time sailing vessels in their tedious ways around Caiie Horn 
and then u\> the Pacific Coast to San Francisco were such as to 
cause the stoutest heart to pause. The shorter route by the Isthmus, 
while re(|uiring less time, was ahnost ecjually as dangerous. What 
was missed in the perils and hardships of the sea by taking the 
Isthmian way was counterbalanced Ijy the dangers entailed in crossing 



232 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

this tropical neck of land laden witli the germs of many diseases to 
which the emigrant so readily fell a prey. The fever and dissentery 
of the Isthmus and the unwholesome quarters of the emigrant ships 
claimed many an ambitious and deserving man who had set out to 
find his fortune in the Golden West. 

The overland route, crossing the Rocky Mountains, over the 
vast plains inhabited bj' hostile Indians, across the Platte with its 
treacherous sands, requiring from three to six months with the slow 
moving ox teams of the emigrant trains, that finally crossed the 
Sierras through Truckee Pass makes a story familiar to everyone. 
Like the tragedy that ended the glorious career of Julius Caesar, 
it is acted and re-enacted upon the stage and told and retold in 
stories even to this day. Therefore it is no wonder that only the 
young and active thought of venturing upon this perilous western 
journey. Of the young and active only those of ambitious and daring 
spirits would risk life and all that was most dear to them in order 
to reach the alluring shores of California. 

We of today who sail in floating palaces with every luxury and 
convenience of the hour at hand, or who cross the vast plains and 
lofty mountains in comfortable, rapidly inoving cars can hardly 
realize the dangers and hardships endured by the men and women 
who first came to California. These pioneers were a race of ambitious 
and courageous men and women that assembled in California on 
new grounds, far removed from the hampering conventionalities of 
society. Not many from anj^ place — a few from every place — they 
rapidly adjusted themselves to conditions and necessities of the 
time. All classes, states and nationalities were represented, and from 
this cosmopolitan people was developed that noble, brave and hos- 
pitable race, the Pioneers of California, whose praises have been so 
often sung by the poet and told by the historian. They were all 
young and strong. When a boy my father came to the west with 
an emigrant train, driving an ox-team all of the way, and I have 
heard him say that a gray head was so rare that it excited attention 
and comment when found among the men of ])ioneer days. 

Emigration after the gold rush was comparatively slow. The 
cost and inconvenience of transportation deterred travel westward. 

Those who foud their way here were rapidly absorbed. They 
were eager to become Californians and quickly fell into our ways and 
customs. Later the railway service was greatly improved, cost of 
passage came more within the reach of the average person. The 
newspapers, magazines and histories constantly told of the glories 
and opportunities of this coast, and in consequence emigration grew 
by leaps and bounds. The population increased so rapidly now that 
we began to undergo a change of character. Entire colonies were 
often made up from the people of some particular state, and they 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 233 

looked towards their former homes for customs and precedent. In 
the near future witliont a doubt our emigration will increase far more 
rapidly than ever before. The great opj^ortunities offered by increased 
irrigation facilities, more careful and diversified farming, the stimulus 
given to the manufacturing by the development of electric power and 
discovery of oil, the immense benefits that will follow the completion 
of the Panama Canal, and the attraction of the World's Fair will 
bring thousands here. The melting pot of which Zangwill speaks 
will be brought into play and on this coast from a cosmopolitan people 
will be recast a race as peculiar to California as the flowers and 
trees that adorn her valleys and mountains. Short winters, generous 
sunshine and fertile soil will develop a race of splendid men and 
women, hospitable and fun-loving, the happiest people in the world, 
and this will be the greatest achievement in the evolution of the San 
Joaquin Valley. 



KINGS 
COUNTY 




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BIOGRAPHICAL 



COLUMBUS P. MAJORS 

A California pioneer who recalls with interest early days in 
Tulare county when he took a prominent part in local ai¥airs, is 
Columbus P. Majors, of Visalia. Mr. Majors was born in Morgan 
county, 111., March 22, 1830, and in 1853 crossed the plains to Cali- 
fornia with an ox-team, starting April 14 and arriving at Sacramento 
September 13 following. The party, which came with a train of 
nineteen ox-wagons, was made up of Iowa and Illinois people and 
was under command of Captain L. M. Owen, who had made one trip 
to the Pacific coast in 1849. The overland emigrants were several 
times compelled to corral their wagons, fearing attacks by Indians, 
but made the journey without any very lamentable mishaps. For two 
years after his arrival in California, Mr. Majors worked in the 
Sherlock Flat mine on the Merced river, but it was not as a miner 
that he wae destined to make his success in this state. He came to 
Visalia in 1855 and found the people all living in the old fort as a 
ineans of protection against the redskins, who were at that time menac- 
ing the settlers in this vicinity. He took up eighty acres of government 
land on the Cutler road and for many years raised cattle and sheep, 
and it was not until 1884 that he bought his present home ranch on 
Mineral King avenue. Here he has twenty acres of tine orchard, 
having planted all the trees with his own hands, and his peaches 
include Phillips cling-stones, Tuscan cling-stones, Fosters and 
Albertas. He has developed a fine farm on which he has met with 
well deserved success. 

In 1861, after the Civil war had begun and while rioting was in 
progress at Visalia, Mr. Majors was captain of the Home Guard 
Cavalry, which was organized to keep order. His brother, John P. 
Majors, also came to California and was the first postmaster at 
Visalia, which was the first postoffice established in Tulare county. 

In April, 1852, Columbus P. Majors married Miss Mary C. Owen, 
a native of Lee county, Iowa, who bore him a son and four daugh- 
ters: Amador PL; Mrs. Anna L. Arkle, who has passed away; 
Celestia J., who is Mrs. L. E. McCabe ; Mrs. Caroline Arkle, and Mrs. 
Eva Sadler, deceased. During his active years Mr. Majors was 
identified largely with the public interests of the connnunity and 
there was no call upon him in behalf of the general good to which 
he did not respond promptly and liberally. 



242 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

GEORGE E. WADDELL 

Numbered among the well-known and respected citizens of Exeter 
who have distinguished themselves in the advancement of that jilace 
is George E. Waddell, who has been identified with the civil affairs 
of Exeter from its earliest history, having tilled the office of its 
mayor as its first incumbent, and so fulfilling the duties of that office 
as to win the confidence of all his fellow citizens, and he has since 
been sought to fill many other public positions to which the people 
have called him. In industrial circles he has also figured })rom- 
inently, having been merchant there and he is now giving most of 
his attention to his real estate interests which are large and varied. 

Mr. Waddell is a native son of California, having been born 
in Lancha Plana, Amador county, September 9, 1862, the son of Isaac 
and Mercy B. Waddell, the former a native of Baltimore, Md., who 
crossed the plains to California in 1852 and began his career in the 
mines of Amador county. The mother came of a pioneer family wlio 
made the overland journey with ox-teams. The family made their 
home at Lancha Plana until 187l2, when they moved to lone, where 
the father died in 189.3, and the widowed mother after a while removed 
to San Francisco, where after a residence of several years she 
re-established their home at lone, and three years later, in 190o, 
occurred her death. 

Reared to industrial habits and inheriting a taste for mercantile 
pursuits, at tlie age of nineteen George K. Waddell went to work 
for John Marchant, who was in the meat business at lone and for 
twelve years he remained steadily in his employ. He then leased 
the premises from the latter and conducted the Jmsiness for about 
ten years, when he sold out and came to Visalia, buying a half 
interest in the Pioneer market business, wJiich' after conducting for 
about ten months, he sold. It was at this time that he came to Exeter 
and bought out the Exeter and Lindsay markets, which at the time 
were very rudimentary business places. With his son, George H., Mr. 
Waddell set to work with a will to build up these establishments into 
modern markets, remodeling and rebuilding them and introducing 
new and up-to-date equipments and installing a refrigerating system 
which made them among the best markets in the county. Since then 
the Exeter market has been sold, but they retain the Lindsay place 
of business which the son, George H., is 7nanaging with marked 
ability, while Mr. Waddell gives his attention to the jmrchase of stock. 
They first had built a structure at Lindsay 25x75 feet in dimension for 
their business, Init this soon became too small and they Iniilt a new two- 
story brick block, 4-0xL')0 feet, in 1910 with new refrigerating and cold 
storage equijimcnt, and its appointments are all modern and first-class. 
The marble countcis and excellent tool e(|uii)mcnt give the place an air of 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 243 

cleanliness and wholesomeness which bespeaks the good taste of the 
owner, and their product and the handling of their goods l)ear the most 
gratifying repntation in the community, it having been credited by 
the press at one time as being one of the tinest places of its kind 
in the state. 

In connection with this business Mr. Waddell gives attention 
to real estate, in which he has l)een most successful. lie has ))lanted 
and owns a very fine thirty-acre orange grove within eighty rods of 
the city limits, and also owns tracts in different parts of Tulare 
county aggregating tlirec hundred and fifty acres in all, and l)eside 
this he owns a well-improved farm of four hundred and eighty acres 
about seven miles east of Stockton. With all of these interests, Mr. 
"Waddell finds time to be most active in the affairs of his city and 
is a constant worker for its best interest, being president of the city 
board as well as treasurer of the same. In August, 1911, the city 
voted bonds in the amount of $42,000 for the purjiose of providing 
an adequate water system, which was fully completed in the summer 
of 1912, consisting of two twelve-inch bored wells, one hundred feet 
deep, with mains six, eight and ten inches respectively, while the 
laterals are four and two inches in size. At the present time six 
blocks of street in the business part of Exeter are being paved, and 
these large movements toward improving the town have had the 
active interest and co-operation of Mr. Waddell in his official ca])acity 
on the city board. In fraternal relations he affiliates with tlip Exeter 
lodge, F. & A. M., and the Exeter division of the Knights of Pythias. 

In 1885 George E. Waddell married Susan Vogan, a native of 
California and a daughter of John Vogan, who died while he was 
filling the ofSce of sheriff of Amador county, where he had come as a 
pioneer. The widow of Mr. Vogan now makes her home in lone. Mr. 
and Mrs. Waddell are the parents of two children, Edwin II., born 
November 23, 1886, who after finishing his education at the Affiliated 
College at San Francisco, took up the study of dentistry and is well 
established in his profession at Visalia; and George Harold, born 
March 28, 1888, who was educated in the schools of Visalia, and is 
now his father's ])artner in the meat business. Both sons were born 
at lone, Amador county, and reflect credit on their training ami the 
honored name they bear. 



SANFOKD P.OOKER 

A native of Gardiner,. Me., Sanford Booker was born October 12, 
1833. and there reared to manhood, educated and given a knowledge 
of the ship carpenter's trade, and later learned house building. 
When he was twenty years old he moved to Medford, Mass., where 



244 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

he worked as a carpenter about fifteen years. At the outbreak of the 
Civil war he enlisted in the Lawrence Light Guards of Medford, a 
militia company, which, as Company E, Fifth Eegiment Massachusetts 
Volunteer Infantry, was mustered into the government service after 
President Lincoln issued his first call for volunteers, April 15, 1861. 
Next day the company was ordered to be in readiness, and on the 
eighteenth an order to march was issued by Col. Samuel C. Lawrence, 
this order being taken to the members of the organization by the 
Colonel's brother, Daniel W. Lawrence, who on the night of the 
eighteenth rode from town to town for that purpose. Among those 
soldiers of 18(11 there was a strong conviction that Lawrence rode 
over the same route that Paul Revere had followed on a similar errand 
eighty-six years before. The regiment was quartered at Faneuil 
Hall, Boston, until the morning of April 21, when it left for New 
York. When Lawrence brought the order to Mr. Booker the latter 
was running a mill. Going home immediately, he rejDorted that he 
was ordered out and would have to go to Washington, and he went 
to Boston and slept that night in Faneuil Hall with his comrades; 
on that same night the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment was mobbed 
in the streets of Baltimore. At Washington the Fifth was mustered 
into service for three months from May 1, and it participated in the 
fight at Bull Run, where Colonel Lawrence was wounded and the 
regimental color-bearer was shot down. Ten days later the Fifth 
Massachusetts was mustered out of the service and soon afterwards 
Corporal Booker's company was mustered out at Medford. His 
corporal's commission is dated February 12, 1861. 

About 1868 Mr. Booker moved to De Kalb county. Mo., and 
engaged in building until 1874, when he came to California. He 
stopped at Los Angeles, but soon settled at San Bernardino, where 
he lived seven years operating extensively as a contractor and builder 
and he erected there the county court house, the Congregational and 
Baptist churches, some school houses and several fine residences. 
He was the builder of the first house at Redlands, the latter the 
property of Frank Brown, civil engineer, wlio constructed the reser- 
voir through which Redlands is supplied with water. Mr. Booker 
had to grub out sage brush before he could lay the foundation of the 
building, and he and his men boarded themselves, for there was no 
one li-^-ing in the vicinity. In 1887 he sold his property at San 
Bernardino and removed to Hanford, buying a one hundred and sixty- 
acre ranch northeast of the town, where he farmed imtil 1892, and 
then sold his land and built himself a residence in town. He was very 
active in securing county division of Tulare county and the partition 
of Kings county in that year, and assisted with his own means to 
finance the movement. Indeed there was no other man at Hanford 
who was more influential to these ends than was he. He personally 




^'^^^ c^i-C^yt^ ^Tlpf^ 




^'^'/^^ 



TULAEE AXD KINGS COUNTIES 249 

canvassed every home in the county to ascertain if a two-thirds vote 
for the new county would be possible if a favorable bill should be 
passed by the legislature. After this matter was settled he visited 
the World's Fair at Chicago. Since then he has lived in Hanford. 
which when he first saw it in 1887 was a mere hamlet containing but 
one store and in the prosperity of which he has been a potent factor. 
In 1893 he bought twelve acres of fruit land and. having suffered 
a stroke of paralysis which incapacitated him for work, retired from 
active business. When the -'Old Bank" at Hanford was estabUshed 
he was its fii-st depositor, having until then done his banking at 
VisaUa. ° 

On November 27, 1854, Mr. Booker married IMiss Sarah E. Carr, 
at Medford, Mass. Mrs. Booker, who was a native of Massachusetts' 
bore her husband two children, Everett S., of Hanford, and Sarah 
Elizabeth, who has passed away. Everett S. Booker married Edith 
O'Brien and they have a daughter, Marv Florence. Mr Booker is 
identified with McPhersou Post, G. A. R.. of Hanford. and is a Blue 
Lodge and Eoyal Arch Mason, and he and Mrs. Booker were charter 
members of the Eastern Star, Mrs. Booker being past worthv matron 



EMANUEL T. RAGLE 

A true t>-pe of the self-made man is ex-idenced in tlie career of 
Emanuel T. Eagle, who now lives one mile east of Naranio in 
Tulare county. Cal. He was born May 8. 18.33, back in Tennessee 
in Hawkins county, and there attended public schools after he was 
old enough until he was eighteen years old. when he went to In- 
diana. After remaining there but a short time, he went to Iowa 
where his residence was likewise brief. He returned to Indiana and 
from there started for California in 18.54 and drove an ox-team 
across the plains for $10 a month and his board. He located near 
Redding. Shasta county. Cal.. but soon went into the mines in Men- 
docino county. Meeting with but indifferent success there, he made 
his way to Sonoma county, where he farmed until 1863. Returning 
to Mendocino county, he remained there a year and in 1865 came to 
Tulare county, and after a couple of years spent on Outside creek 
near the dam, he came to his present location, where he bought 
eighty acres of land. Soon afterward he homesteaded one hundred 
and sixty acres, and by subsequent purchases he has increased his 
holdings to seven hundred and seventy-five acres, notwithstandin? he 
has in the meantime sold two hundred and thirty-five acres. "^ He 
has devoted his land to gi-ain. and raises cattle, "horses and boss, 
and in each one of these several fields of endeavor he has done well' 



250 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Wlien lie came to tlie eounty, nearly all the farming was in grain, 
settlement had not far advanced and improvements were few and 
widely scattered. He had his initial experience with grain and has 
followed the development of agriculture, sometimes keeping in ad- 
vance of it, thus ])rofiting by every new development and liaving 
advantage of every innovation. 

Beginning life with $1.50 capital, Mr. Ragle has worked and 
persevered, trinm))]iing over difficulties as he has met them until he 
is now one of the prosperous men in his community. It is probable that 
two causes above all others have contributed to this achievement. 
He has at all times been what we are pleased to call a hustler, aggres- 
sive, active and u]vto-date, and he has at the same time been always 
a Christian gentleman, devoted to the honorable dealings and the 
uplift of his community. He is widely known throughout the sur- 
rounding country for the high grade of his stock and he keeps usually 
aliout one hundred head of cattle and forty to fifty head of horses. 
The schools of his community liave lieen his constant care, and lie 
has done much to advance them. 

Mr. Ragle uuuried, Seiitember 2.S, 1858, Miss Eliza Ann Moft'ett, 
a native of Tennessee, who was brought early in life to Califor- 
nia, and she has borne him thirteen children, nine daughters and 
four sons, all of whom are living, and all of whom are native sons 
and daughters of California. Mrs. Ragle's father was Hamilton 
Motfett, of Scotch-Irish blood, who died in Missouri when Mrs. Ragle 
was four years old. Her mother was Charlotte Bunn, born in \'ir- 
ginia, who died in Tulare coimty. Mr. and Mrs. Ragle are the proud 
grandparents of half a hundred urandchildren, and twelve great- 
grandchildren. 

The father of Emanuel T. was George H. Ragle, born in \'irginia 
and died in Tennessee. His grandfather was born in Germany ami 
settled in Virginia, where he was accidentally drowned. 



JOHN DAVIS TYLER 

J. D. Tyler was the oldest living representative of the original 
settlers on fule river, Tulare county, Cal., and had been engaged in 
agricultural pursuits and the stock business here since 1859 and as 
a pioneer is entitled to a more than passing mention in the history 
of the county. Mr. Tyler was born in Marcellus, Onondaga county, 
N. Y., in 1827, the son of Job Tyler, a farmer and a minister of 
the Seventh Day Baptist denomination. His early life was rather 
migratory, his father going to Ohio in 1834 and to St. Joseph county, 
Mich., in 1836. Educational advantages in those days were limited 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 251 

and yonnfj; Tyler's schooling was confined to the three months 
winter term, not iufreciuently being detained at home to accomplish 
some work on the farm and not attending school at all after his 
fourteenth year. 

In 1851, with his father and brother James, Mr. Tyler started 
for California via New York and the Isthmus of Panama. Their 
steamer was the first to land emigrants at Aspinwall. At Panama 
they embarked on the English brig Tryphenia, with one hundred 
and thirty passengers, the vessel being much overloaded and having 
only a meager supply of water and stores. The sufferings on that 
terrible journey of sixty-five days from Panama to San Diego were 
intense. The last thirty days they had no bread and only one-half 
pint of water per day to the man. Their small allowance of jieas 
or l)eans nuist be soaked in salt water or the greasy slush that 
came from the cook room. For twenty days they nearly starved 
and Mr. Tyler's father contracted disease to which he succumbed 
while in port at San Diego and was there laid to rest. J. D. Tyler 
and his brother then reshipped for San P'rancisco, arriving there 
February 29, 1852, just four months after leaving New York. They 
went to the mines at Nevada City and followed life in the mining 
camps either in boarding house work or in actual mine workings 
of their own until 1859, when, hearing that cattle were selling in 
Tulare county, they started for Tule river with a view to purchas- 
ing and driving to the mines. Upon their arrival they found the 
statement to be without foundation, and, in partnershi}) with Len 
Redfield, they settled on Tule river and engaged in the stock busi- 
ness. This association continued until 1865, when Mr. Redfield 
withdrew and tiie Tyler brothers continued in partnership until 
1871, when they separated, J. D. Tyler remaining on the river. His 
home place of one hundred and sixty acres was homesteaded under 
the first homestead act or law in 1864. He later added to his orig- 
inal holdings, and owned two hundred acres, much of which he 
farmed to grain and fruit. He was also largely interested in 
horses and cattle and rented two sections of land for stock range. 

Mr. Tyler was married at Visalia in 1864 to Miss Mary J. Mc- 
Kelvey, a native of Pennsylvania and the daughter of George Mc- 
Kelvey, who came to California in 1852 by wav of Cape Horn. 
They "had five children, Clyde D., Carl R.", Chris W., Corda F. 
(daughter) and Clair H. Mr. Tyler was a charter member of the 
Farmers' Alliance, belonging to the Porterville branch, of which 
he was the first president. He never sought the emoluments of 
office and always avoided every suggested nomination. He was the 
first Republican on Tule river, and in 1859 his was the only Re- 
publican vote cast out of the thirty-one cast at that time. When 
the county was filled with Southern sympathizers in 1861 he stood 



252 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

firm in his convictions and was only the more respected for loyalty 
to his country. 

At his home, two miles east of Porterville, Tulare county, 
J. D. Tyler passed away November 18, 1895, at the age of sixty- 
seven years and eleven months. Eeligiously he was not bound by 
any creed, but he believed and followed implicitly the Golden Rule': 
"Love thy neighbor as thyself." Politically he was a stanch Repub- 
lican, ever ready to battle for the cause. Too much a lover of home 
to care for the emoluments of office, yet he was ever read}' to work 
and aid the ones whom he believed were the best fitted to hold the 
reins of government, and if they were defeated he always bowed 
to the iue\-itable and gave the victors all honor and support. Moral- 
ly, he was an earnest, conscientious citizen. As every nation must 
have soldiers to defend its honor and maintain its rights, so every 
town or precinct must have its citizens to uphold its integrity. Citi- 
zens who realize that the moral atmosphere of the country permeates 
the homes and adds or detracts from their hajopiness and glory 
recognized such a citizen was Mr. Tyler. His influence and work were 
ever in the cause of temperance, and he always by his own acts strove to 
influence the young to walk morally upright, and gave his aid and 
countenance to the uplift of humanity. His sickness was of long 
standing, dating really from the hardships endured in coming to 
California. His system never rallied from the strain then received. 
In 1893 he began to fail perceptibly and in 1894 he gave up work en- 
tirely and after going to the polls on November 6 he did not again 
leave his home. In his death his country has lost a loyal, zealous 
citizen, his town an earnest worker for its good, his neighbors a 
faithful, trvie-hearted friend, his children a noble-hearted father, 
his wife a faithful, loving, trusting companion, and each and all 
mourn his earthh' loss. On the afternoon of the 20th of November 
services were held at the homestead by Rev. J. G. Eckels, pastor 
of the CongTegational church, and, surrounded by his most intimate 
friends and loving relatives, he was laid to rest in the beautiful 
cemetery in which he took so much interest and of which he was 
president and superintendent for many years. 

SLEEP, OLD PIONEER! 

When the hill of life u-as steepest, 
When the forest froivn ivas deepest, 
Poor hut young, you hastened here, 
Came ivhen solid hope was cheapest; 
Came a pioneer. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 255 

Toil had never cause to doubt you, 
Progress' path you helped to clear, 
And your ivonder works outlast you, 
Sleep, old pioneer! 



JOHN HOLMES HUNTLEY 

A pioneer of 1852, a busy and patriotically active citizen since 
1865, John Holmes Hnntley, of Visalia, Tulare county, was ever 
a factor in the upbuilding- of his community whose influence has been 
potent all along. Born in Canajoharie, N. Y., September 7, 1829, a 
son of Oliver D. and Mary (Stark) Huntley, he was educated in the 
public schools of his native county and at Ames academy, and to a 
considerable extent in a bookstore in Albany, N. Y., where he was 
employed two years. His father was a native of Stonington, R. I., 
and his mother was born in Connecticut, a daughter of Joshua Stark, 
a farmer, who passed away in New York. John Holmes Huntley was 
but six years old when his mother died. His father was brought up 
to the mercantile business and sold goods many years; his second 
wife was a sister of his first. By each marriage he had six children. 
He died at the age of sixty-five years. 

John H. Huntley was the third child of his father by the first 
marriage and inherited industry and thrift from ancestors who had 
behind them unnumbered ancestors of Scotch blood. In 1852, when 
he was about twenty-three years old, he started for California by way 
of the Nicaragua route and arrived in November that year. In the 
Sonora mining district he kejit busy and made some money buying 
and selling stock till October, 1861, when he enlisted for Federal 
service in the Civil war in Company E, Second California Cavalry. 
He was mustered in at San Francisco, was on duty for a time against 
Indians on the northern border, was transferred to Tulare county, 
served at the time of the Owens River outbreak, acting as sergeant- 
major of a detail of his regiment, and was mustered out in 1864 after 
a continuous service of three years and four days. In the mines of 
Nevada he speculated a year after the war, then returned to Tulare 
county and engaged in loaning money in Tulare, Kern and Fresno 
counties. From time to time lie bought land till he owned eight 
hundred and forty acres in the San Joaquin valley, mostly devoted 
to stock-raising, and acquired a fine residence on the Mineral King- 
road, two miles east of Visalia. 

In politics a Republican, Mr. Huntley served his party in various 
offices of trust, having been internal revenue collector for Tulare, 

16 



256 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Kern, Inyo and Fresno counties for five years, until the office was 
abolished, and was also gauger of liquors and surveyor of stills until 
he resigned. He was a member of Gen. Wright Post, G. A. E., of 
Visalia. 

On August 3, 1879, Mr. Huntley married, at San Rafael, Nina R. 
AMilfard, l)orn at Southam]iton, Eng., and they were the parents of 
two sons: Willfard H. and Chester S. In 1900 he moved his family 
temporarily to Berkeley, in order to afford his children good educa- 
tional advantages. In all matters that have advanced the social, 
political and educational welfare of Tulare county Mr. Himtley was 
always eagerly helpful, evidencing a public spii'it commensurate with 
his conspicuous integrity. He passed away at the home ranch near 
Visalia, February 24, 1912. 

When the old high school in Visalia was built, Mr. Huntley 
bought the entire issue of the bonds, amoimting to $40,000, and as 
they ran from one to forty years, some of them have twenty-five 
years yet in which to mature. He invested largely in ranch property 
in Tulare county, his first purchase of this kind being the Lewis Creek 
ranch of one lumdred and sixty acres, which he later sold. One of his 
holdings was the Cross ranch at Bakersfield, a hundred and sixty 
acres; another, a second ranch in the Bakersfield neighborhood, a 
hundred and sixty acres, and both of these he rented. He bought the 
Cameron Creek ranch of a hundred and sixty acres, stock and timber 
land, and gave it to his son Chester S. Three hundred acres of the 
old Dr. Halsted ranch he bought and transferred to his wife and son. 
Mrs. Huntley and her son have also large ranch holdings in Tulare 
and Kern counties and are extensively engaged in stock-raising. 

There is one feature of Mr. Huntley's biography of which he 
seldom talked in later days, yet which should be made a matter of 
record. Before the railroad came, he rode pony express three trijis 
a month between Visalia and Fort Tejon. 



GEORGE W. KNOX 

The well-known and ]Hi])ular proprietor of the general merchan- 
dise business in Orosi, Cal., which enjoys such a flourishing and grat- 
ifying trade there, is George W. Knox, whose influence in tlie commer- 
cial, industrial and political fields in this state as well as in the middle 
states has been most effectively exerted. Unusual executive ability, 
a most sagacious reasoning power, a clear mind and the forceful 
spirit to bring to a successful issue all that he set out to accomplish 
have been the means of Mr. Knox's brilliant achievements in the po- 
litical fiehl, and the state of Minnesota especially has reason to hold 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 257 

him in higli esteem and to ever silently thank him for his activities 
toward the welfare of that vicinity. 

A native of Columbia county, Wis., the son of George and Julia 
A. (Jackson) Knox, George W. was born November 20, 1852. His 
parents were both natives of Essex county, N. Y., coming to Wisconsin 
at an early day and settling down to farming for a long period of 
years. Persevering, hard-working people, they here reared their 
family and became well-to-do farmers of their day, giving to their 
children the benefits of a good education and imparting to them that 
rare good training which has made of so many of our citizens the 
well-balanced men they are today. The latter years of their life was 
s))ent in California whence they had come in 1904, and in Grangeville 
the father passed away, at the age of ninety-three years, his widow 
dj^ng a short time later at Orosi at the same age. 

At the common and high schools of Kilbourn, Wis., George W. 
Knox received his educational training, working during the summers 
with his father on the home farm. Mercantile life early attracted him 
and upon graduation from school he became clerk in a drug store for 
a few years, later embarking in that business for himself at Elroy, 
Wis., which engaged his entire time for several years. In 1874 with 
his brother he drove across the plains to Boise City, Idaho, but 
remained here but a short time, returning east to locate in Aitkin. 
Minn., where his Ijrother D. J. Knox was then living. His career 
here covered the period between 1876 and 1908, during which time 
he became a central figure in industrial and political circles, and be- 
came most prominent through his efforts in the legislature to bring 
about the improvement of many conditions there. With his brother 
D. J. Knox he engaged in the wholesale and retail mercantile busi- 
ness, lumbering and logging, which they carried on until the former's 
death; he then continued alone until his removal to California, at that 
time selling out the business. A stanch Reiiublican in political senti- 
ment, he soon became prominent in local affairs in Minnesota, and 
held the office of county auditor, being later superintendent of schools 
in Aitkin county. THs exceptional ability soon attracted the attention 
of politicians, and he was elected to serve for two years on the State 
Board of Equalization, which office he tilled with such satisfaction to 
his constituents that he received the election to the State Legislature 
for the term of 1907-08, and served two years as member of the staff 
of Governor VanSant, with rank of colonel. He was chairman of 
Aitkin County Central Committee for years and during his incum- 
bency many long-felt wants of the county were fulfilled, the county 
being benefited in many directions by his presence on this committee. 
With all movements tending to the growtli and development of Min- 
nesota and the surrounding country Mr. Knox had a great interest, 
and was usually instrumental in aiding in their fuitherance. He had 



258 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

man}" opportunities in liis business to find these deficiencies and his 
experience in the himbering business had taught him the value of cer- 
tain conditions which he sought to bring about. 

For many years the business of Mr. Knox in Aitkin was the lum- 
bermen's headquarters in this country, they being the most extensive 
outfitters in that section in their day. After relinquishing his interests 
here in 1908 he decided to come to California, whence his parents had 
preceded him, and accordingly came to Orosi, which has since been his 
place of residence. In Minnesota, Mr. Knox had married Ella H. 
Smith, a native of Illinois, who passed away in Minnesota, and one 
son was born to this union, Walter DeF. Upon arriving in Orosi, 
Cal., he investigated conditions there, finally deciding to establish 
himself in his own line of business, and on January 1, 1909, the busi- 
ness of Bump &: Knox was begun, dealing in lumber and builders' sup- 
]ilies, and this has grown and increased to such an extent that a whole- 
sale and retail business is carried on, Mr. Knox now being sole pro- 
prietor. He has a general merchandise business in connection and 
enjoys a wide and profitable trade, gaining his patronage chiefly by his 
sagacious handling of his wares and his courteous yet business-like 
manner. 

In 1909 Mr. Knox married in Los Angeles, Christina (Thompson) 
Smith, and they make their home in Orosi, being well-known mem- 
bers of society there. Mr. Knox has been a prominent Mason in 
Minnesota as well as in California; he is a 32d degree Scottish Rite 
Mason and Knight Templar of York Rite, member of Osmau Temple 
of St. Paul, Minn., and past master of Blue lodge at Aitkin, Minn.; 
member of the Knights of Pythias of Orosi ; and is also a member of 
the Blue lodge of Masons of Orosi. He has one sister, Mrs. S. J. 
Knowlton. widow of E. G. Knowlton, who is residing in Orosi. 

It is of interest to add that Mr. Knox lias become very interested 
in drainage systems in Minnesota, and his entrance into the legislature 
was for the furtherance of the project to secure appropriations for 
that purpose. During his term of ser\ice $400,000 was secured under 
his bill, and the appropriation has been continued ever since under the 
same ratio, thus perpetuating the influence and accomplishments of 
its loval instigator and friend. Mr. Knox's career has spelled power 
and success from its inception, and he has earned the deepest grati- 
tude and admiration of all who have come to know him. 



WILLIAM E. GOBLE 

In Coles county, 111., November 18, 1872, William E. Goble, 
now a resident of Tulare county, two and one-half miles east of Orosi, 
was born. He is widely known as a pioneer in this section and as 




BENJAMIN HICKS 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 261 

a successful uurseryman. When he was nineteen years old he went 
to Labette county, Kans., where he lived six years. From that state 
W. E. Goble came to Tulare county, where he bought sixty acres of 
an old place on whicli an orchard had been established about 1871. 
He now has four thousand small orange trees and ten thousand grape 
vines in tln-ee varieties, six thousand Malagas, three thousand 
Thompsons and one thousand Emperors, all of which he intends using 
on his own place. He has nine acres of Emperor grapes, six acres 
of Malagas and four acres of Muscats. He is gradually working out 
of the nursery business and caring for his own laud. Water is made 
available from wells from wJiicJi it is drawn by means of rotary 
pumps, and a continual flow of thirty inches assures him a sufficient 
quantity for the entire place. 

While he was living in Kansas, Mr. Goble married Miss Ida 
Stoddard, a native of Indiana, and they have two children, Gladys 
and Reva Goble. His parents were John and Catherine (Reynolds) 
Goble, the foriner now living in Kansas and the latter died in Illinois 
in 1890. Politically he is an industrial organizer and socially he 
affiliates with the Fraternal Brotherhood of America. He holds 
membership in tlie Baptist church. As a citizen he is progressive 
and public- spirited, willing at all times to contribute liberally to the 
support of any measure which in his opinion pi-omises to benefit 
the community at large. 



BENJAMIN HICKS 

A descendant from old Canadian families, Benjamin Hicks was 
born in Toronto, Canada, December 30, 1847, and grew to maturity 
and acquired his education in the city of his nativity. It was in 
1869 that he set out to seek his fortune. Crossing the line into the 
United States he made his way through the heart of the West and 
located in Tulare county, Cal., and settled on a ranch a mile and a 
half north of Visalia. From there he moved in 1884 to an eight 
hundred-acre stock and grain ranch on the Smith road and on rural 
free delivery route No. "2 of the Visalia postal district. There he 
farmed nine years, saving considerable money, a portion of which he 
invested in an eighty-acre grain tract, and in another tract of one 
hundred acres two miles Northeast of Visalia. From the time of his 
settlement in Tulare county until his death, June 9, 1900, a period of 
about a quarter of a century, he was identified with the agricultural 



262 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

development of central California. When he began here nothing had 
been done to irrigate the soil and the degree of its productiveness was 
unknown, but he and other pioneers proved that profitable grain 
cultivation and cattle-raising were not only possible but easy of 
attainment. He gained a position of influence in the county and was 
respected for his keen judgment, high honor and energy. In his 
dealings with his fellow men he exemplified the teachings of the Chris- 
tian Church, of which he was a devout and helpful member. Polit- 
ically he was Republican, and as a citizen he gave his support to all 
measures tending to the benefit of the connnunity. The free school 
system always had his generous |n-on'iotion and he long held the office 
of trustee of the Elbow Creek district, greatly to the benefit of the 
local school. Fraternally he affiliated with the Independent Order of 
Odd Fellows and the Ancient Order of United Workmen. 

In 1871 Mr. Hicks was married near Visalia to Miss Elizabeth 
A. March, who was born in Merced, Cal., a daughter of Robert and 
Mary Jane (Holloway) March, who were of Kentucky birth. Her 
parents settled early in Missouri and from there came overland to 
California in 18-19. They lived first in Mariposa county, next in 
Merced county, and then in Tulare county, where she died in 1881. in 
her fifty-seventh year, he passing away in 1903, in his seventy-ninth 
year. Until his removal to Tulare county Mr. March had devoted 
himself entirely to farming; here he gave some attention to mining 
interests. Mr. and Mrs. Hicks had seven children, four of whom 
survive: Albert E., Mary Pearl, Jewell and Ruby Louise. 

Albert E. Hicks has charge of the old Hicks homestead, which 
he has managed since 1876. After his father's death he planted 
eighty acres to orchard, and now he has one of the best producing 
orchards in the county. Thirty acres of his land is devoted to 
peaches and of that fruit he sold one hundred and fifteen tons in 1911, 
chiefly Phillips clingstones, Lovells and Muirs. The relative value 
of these peaches per acre was, in the order in which they have been 
named, $.300. $150 and $50 an acre. The entire average value of his 
peach crop is somewhat in excess of $4,000. His eight hundred and 
sixty prune trees produce one hundred and ninety tons of prunes 
valued at more than $6,000. Mr. Hicks married Miss Elizabeth Alles, 
and they have children named Gladys, Elwood and Allison. Mr. 
Hicks affiliates with the Woodmen of the World. His sisters Mary 
Pearl and Jewell live with their mother at No. 503 North Church 
street, Visalia, and his sister Ruby Louise became the wife of A. E. 
Blair and their home is near Visalia. By the will of Benjamin Hicks 
his wife was made administrator of Ms estate and her management 
of it has given her a re)nitation for uncommon business ability. The 
Hicks family is strong in its support of the Christian Church. 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 263 

ISAAC H. THOMAS 

The name of Isaac ii. Thomas atands as a synonym for all 
that is highest and best in horticultural accomplishments in Tulare 
county, as is attested in the fact that he is proudly referred to by 
the citizens as the Luther Burbank of Tulare county. The earliest 
recollections of Mr. Thomas are of a home on a southern planta- 
tion, his birth having occurred in Grayson county, Ky., in 1838. 
He was a lad of twenty years when he turned his back on the scenes 
of his boyhood and came to California by way of Panama and 
Aspinwall, a voyage tilled with interest to the young traveler. It 
had been the intention of the party to visit Panama City, but on 
account of the riots then prevailing they were marched between 
lines of soldiers to lighters and taken aboard the steamer. This was 
overcrowded to the point of discomfort, the late arrivals having to 
content themselves with standing room. When the ship hove in sight 
of the Golden Gate the i)assengers became unruly in their eagerness 
to land and thus relieve the tension and discomfort which they had 
endured during the long voyage on the Pacific. The crowding of 
the passengers to one side of the ship nearly capsized it, and in order 
to right the ship and preserve order the captain was compelled to 
turn the hot water hose on the uninily crowd. At San Francisco 
Mr. Thomas boarded the overland stage for \'isalia, ari'iving No- 
vember 5, 1858. He had been attracted to Visalia from the fact that 
his brother, Joseph H. Thomas, was located here, having come to 
California in 1852 and to \'isalia in 1856. Here the latter was en- 
gaged in the himlier business on Mill creek, cutting and sawing ])ine 
lumber. The brothers formed an association in the himlter busi- 
ness that lasted eleven years, during which time they lost three 
mills by fire and flood. Tlie mill was located forty-five miles from 
Visalia and they paid $40 to $50 i)er thousand feet for hauling the 
lumlier to town, where it sold for $90 a thousand. The logs were 
blasted in order to get tliem intd tlic mill. 

After giving nji the lumber business Isaac H. Thomas turned 
his attention to the nui'sery and orchai'd industry and his interest 
in the same has continued to the jiresent time. To him is given the 
credit for taking orders for and selling the first fruit trees in Tulare 
county, obtaining- his initial stock from San Jose. Into his nursery, 
located one and a half miles east of Visalia, he introduced manv 
new varieties of fruit trees. A .subsequent undertaking was the 
planting and development of a ninetv acre orchard adjacent to town. 
Since 1904 he has ])een associated with the Red P>ank Orchard 
Company in the capacity of horticultui-ist. This oi-chaid was started 
willi the intention of fatei'inii- t<> tlic eastern ti-ade exclusivelv and 



2(34 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

grows the earliest fruit in the state north of the Imperial valley. 
Some idea of the duties involved as manager of the Red Bank or- 
chard may be gathered from the fact that the ranch comprises 
twenty-two hundred acres, of which nine hundred and forty acres 
are in fruit, as follows: oranges, table grapes (fourteen varieties), 
seedless limes, tangarines, plums (fifteen varieties), as well as an 
early variety of peaches, in fact the very earliest produced in the 
United States. The orchard has an exceptional location ou the face 
of Colvin mountain. Electric power is used for irrigatiou, water 
being supplied from a system of wells seventy-seven feet deep and 
pumped one hundred and seventy-five feet up hill into cement flumes. 
Mr. Thomas has exhibited Yisalia grown fruits all over America, 
and abroad also, and has never taken any but first premiums. Be- 
sides sending exhibits from his own ranch, which he owned before 
he became associated with the Eed Bank Orchard Company, he 
also packed and shipped fruit that came from the George A. Flem- 
ing ranch, consisting of three hundred pounds of large peaches, to 
the fairs at Atlanta, Buffalo, and Paris, the peaches running from 
sixteen to twenty-one and a half ounces each. 

The marriage of Mr. Thomas in 1864 united him with Miss 
Caroline Owsley, a native of Missouri. The eldest of their three 
children, John O., now deceased, was elected recorder of Tulare 
county and served one term. Horace M. is a resident of Oakland. 
Annie, the only daughter, is the wife of P. M. Baier, of Yisalia. 
Mr. Thomaa is a member of Four Creek Lodge No. 94, I. O. 0. F., 
and a charter member of the old volunteer fire department. He 
served nine years on the state board of horticultiire and has taken 
an active part in combating the fruit pests, he having invented the 
composition of lime, sulphur and salt for killino- insects and the 
San Jose scale. 

In retrospect Mr. Thomas calls to mind his first impression of 
Visalia, which at the time he arrived here contained three stores, 
a hotel and a blacksmith shop. In the course of half a century he 
has seen wonderful changes in the country round about and no one 
more than he can be given credit for what has been accomplished. 
Few indeed are those now living who were residents here when' he 
settled here. He cast his first vote in Visalia in 1859, supportine; 
Bell and Everett. Mr. Thomas is the proud possessor of two old 
relics which he prizes very highly. One of these is an old drurn. 
which first saw service in the Revolutionary war and later fi2:ured 
in the battle of New Orleans. This relic is now on exhibition at 
Stanford ITniversitv. The other memento is an old hickory cane, 
cut in IR.'i.T at General Jackson's old home in Tennessee, The Herm- 
itage. 




MRS. A. J. SCOGGINS 



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TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 269 

ANDREW J. SCOGGINS 

Among the well-kuowu pioneers of Tulare county is numbered 
Andrew J. Scoggins, sou of David Green and Martha (Breedlove) 
Scoggins, who was born May 28, 1828, in Alabama. His parents were 
natives of North Carolina. The family moved at a comparatively 
early date to Tennessee and were among pioneers in Roane county 
ami later in another county in that state and the father prospered 
fairly as a farmer and as a tanner. When Andrew was twenty-two 
years old he settled in Arkansas, but finding the country unhealthy 
removed to southwest Missouri. In 1848, before leaving his old home 
in Tennessee, he married Miss Julia Buttram, a native of that state, 
who bore him a daughter, Martha Ann, who eventually married the 
Rev. L. C. Renfroe of the Methodist church and bore him children, 
Maud and Louis. Mrs. Scoggins died October 3, 1853. On October 
3, 1856, he married Miss Rebecca Cleek, a native of Tennessee, whom 
he brought across the plains to the Far West. The journey was made 
in the warm part of the year 1857 and he started with two hundred 
head of cattle and lost a few by the way. The start was made from 
Fort Scott and the Platte river was reached at Fort Kearney. The 
latter part of the journey was made by the southern route and Mr. 
Scoggins settled in Yolo county, then a wild country in which he found 
wil<l oats higher than his head. By his second marriage Mr. Scoggins 
had nine children : Margaret M., Byron, Josephine, Nettie, John L., 
Frank, Pearl W., A. J. and an infant unnamed. The three last-men- 
tioned have passed away. Margaret M. married C. Fremont Giddons 
and has three sons and a daughter. Byron has not married. Jose- 
phine married Travers Welch and bore him one child who has won 
success as a teacher at Fresno, where the family live. Nettie married 
C. L. Knestric of Diuuba and has a daughter. Frank married Belle 
Ellis, daughter of J. W. Ellis of Visalia, and has two sons and a 
daughter. Mr. Scoggins has nine grandchildren and three great-grand- 
children. 

Mr. Scoggins crossed the plains the second time, the journey 
being made in comparative safety, there liaA-ing been no trouble 
with the Indians. He came to Hanford in 1866 and lived south of that 
town for ten years. He bought land of the railroad company at $12.50 
an acre and passed through the experiences which culminated in the 
Mussel Slough tragedy and the subsequent settlement of questions at 
issue between settlers and the railroad company. One of his recollec- 
tions is of having seen Mr. Crow after llie latter had been shot down. 
He went for a time to Texas to raise sheep and fed many shee]) in 
Colusa county, (^al. He had now entered upon what may be termed 
his second period of prosperity. In 1870 he had i)aid taxes on prop- 
erty valued at $350,000 and the oi^ening of the year 1876 had found 



270 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

him poor. He began to raise grain, operating extensively in Colusa 
county, where he grew ten thousand sacks of wheat in one memorahle 
season and was known as a leading wheat producer in that part of the 
state. In the spring of 1888 he owned eleven thousand sheep and 
sheared four hundred. His house in Colusa county, a brick structure 
which cost $15,000, was the finest house in the countj^ at the time of 
his residence there. On coming to Dinuba he bought fifty acres of land 
a mile and a half southwest of the town and has given ten acres to his 
heirs. He has thirty acres in grapes and a fine family orchard. 

The country in this region was new when Mr. Scoggins first he- 
held it. Sheep and cattle were fed everywhere, wild game was plenty 
and he often saw large herds of antelope which at a distance looked 
like bands of sheep. Not only has he participated in the development 
of the country, but as a public-spirited citizen he has aided it in every 
way possible. In politics he calls himself a Bryan Democrat. He has 
long been a Mason and is also an Odd Fellow. He and members of 
his family are communicants of the Methodist E]iiscopal Church South. 



HON. TIPTON LINDSEY 

The honor which belongs to the pioneer and to tlie leader in 
affairs of importance to the community attaches to the name of the 
late Hon. Tipton Lindsey, of Visalia, Tulare county, Cal. Mr. 
Lindsey was born in St. Joseph count.y, Ind., May 21, 1829, and was 
reared on a farm there. Elducated in public schools near his boy- 
hood home, he was well advanced in the study of law by the time 
he was twenty years old. In 1849, as a member of a party of thirty, 
he made the journey with ox-teams across the plains to California 
and mined for a time at Placerville. He then settled in Santa Clara 
county, whence he came to Tulare county, in November, 1860, driv- 
ing a bund of cattle. He pre-empted a piece of government land 
near Goshen and turned his cattle out to range, but they died in a 
dry season four years later. He then went to Visalia, completed 
his study of the law and was admitted to the bar, entering upon a 
successful professional practice. From the first he took an active 
interest in jiublic affairs and from time to time was called to fill 
responsible officials positions. He was for twelve years receiver of 
the United States Land Office at Visalia, was long a school trustee, 
served one term as supervisor and represented his district four 
years in the senate of the state of California. During all his active 
life he took a deep and heljiful interest in jiublic education and the 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 271 

Tipton Lindsey graiuinar school of Visalia, named in his honor, is 
a monument to his activities as a promoter of educational advance- 
ment of the city. Indeed, it may be said of him that there was no 
local interest tending to the improvement of the people at large 
that did not receive his public-spirited support. (Comparatively 
earh" in the historj' of Visalia he bought sixteen home lots in the 
town for $800, and the lot on which his widow now has her home 
has been owned in the family forty-six years. Her fine ranch of 
one hundred and sixty acres, three miles west of town, he purchased 
forty-six years ago. The property formerly bore prunes and 
peaches on trees which he set out, but eventually he had them 
taken out and devoted the land to alfalfa, and for several years 
it has been operated by tenants. Fraternally he affiliated with the 
Masons, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and with the An- 
cient Order of United Workmen. He was identified with the Cali- 
fornia Society of Pioneers, the headquarters of which are at San 
Francisco, and helped to organize the Tulare County Society of 
Pioneers. His recollections of 1849 were very comprehensive and 
very interesting. In these days, when the high price of foodstuffs 
is so much discussed, readers should be interested in his narratives 
of a time wheu water sold for $1 a gallon and eggs for $1 each in 
San Francisco. This honored pioneer jiassed away on his ranch 
west of Visalia in 1894. 

In 1859 Mr. Lindsey married Miss Eliza Fine, niece of John 
Fine, who crossed the plains with her uncle in 1853. Wheu she 
came to Visalia it was only a village; she saw the trees set out and 
the homes built in her vicinity, and has watched the development of 
the city to its present projiortions and importance. She recalls many 
entertaining experiences of her journey across the plains. In every 
direction she saw long emigrant trains until they looked small and 
dim on the horizon. She remembers a stamjjede of buffaloes in 
which a herd of thousands bore down on her train, threatening death 
to humans and cattle alike, a tragedy which was ])ic\ented l)y a 
diversion in the \)iith of the maddened bison which took them past 
the camp without inflicting injury to anything in it. She recalls the 
flood of 1868 at Visalia, when for more than twenty- four hours 
water stood a foot deep on the ]:)roperty which is now her home, and 
tells how after the water subsided tons of fish were left on the 
plains west of Visalia. The flood interfered with travel in the coun- 
try round about to such an extent that for two months not a letter 
or newspajjer was receivcnl in the town. Mrs. Lindsey lias two 
children, Charles F., of San Francisco, and Mrs. M. P. Frasier, of 
Los Angeles, who has a son named Harold. 



272 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

HON. JOSEPH C. BROWN 

In 1849, (luring- the days of the gold excitement, which was the 
booming of California and the misfortune of many of its pioneers 
who liad not learned that grain is more golden than gold, Joseph 
C. Brown, a native of Kentucky and a man of nnusual ability, came 
across tlie plains in the historic wearisome way and mined for a 
time at Placerville. Then he bettered his fortunes by turning school 
teacher, holding forth to a few i)upils in the Deep Creek school-house 
in Tulare county, a structure which can be dignified only by de- 
scribing it as a log cabin. But there was a career before him. He 
had a taste for politics and was a forcible and convincing public 
speaker, and in those times and in this then remote region the pub- 
lic speaker had a distinct advantage over his less voluble neighbor. 
He represented Tulare county in the California legislature in 1866, 
1867 and 1868, and the records show that he served on important 
committees and did good work for his constituency. 

Later Mr. Brown ranched in the White River mountains, near 
Exeter, Tulare county, where he operated two hundred and forty 
acres of land in the raising of hogs, the bacon from wMch he enter- 
prisingly sold in the mines. He homesteaded a one hundred and 
sixty-acre ranch of government land, two and one-lialf miles south- 
east of Exeter, which he developed into a productive farm on which 
he lived out his life and died April 25, 1896. 

Of the California constitutional convention of 1876 Mr. Brown 
was an active and influential member, rei^resenting Tulare county, 
and in |)olitical circles he was widely and favorably known through- 
out the state. At the time of the flood of 1868. when he was living 
in the White River mountains, his food supply was cut off tem- 
])orarily and for a while he had nothing to eat but boiled barley. 
He married Mollie M. Lovelace, who bore him children as follows: 
Stanly B., Volney A. and Lucretia E., now Mrs. L. Martin. 

On his father's ranch near Farmersville, Volney A. Brown grew 
to manhood, and in tlie public schools near the home of his boy- 
hood days he acquired his education. When his father's estate was 
divided, eighty acres fell to his share and it is now his home, and 
he has improved it and made of it such an up-to-date ranch as would 
be the pride of any farmer in his district. He has set out a new 
prune orchard, which produced eleven tons in 1911, and raises bar- 
ley, hogs and stock cattle. In connection with his homestead he 
farms a ranch in the hills under lease. He has also invested in 
valuable town lots in Exeter, and has just completed a fine residence 
on his premises, where he and his wife and one son, Joseph C. Brown, 
enjoy all the comforts of a happy home. 

Some of his father's public spirit and concern in public affairs 




JOSEPH C. BROWN 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 275 

was inherited by Mr. Brown, who has an emdable reputation as a 
liberal-minded and very helpful citizen who has at heart the best 
interests of the community. 



GEORGE A. NOBLE 

A prominent citizen and successful builder of Tulare county, 
and a native son of the Golden State, George A. Noble was born in 
Soquel, Santa Cruz county, in 1856, a son of Augustus and Johanna 
M. (Short) Noble. His parents were both born in Massachusetts, 
and his father is living at Soquel at the age of ninety years. 

The elder Noble came to California on board a sailing vessel by 
way of Cape Horn in the year 1849, a member of a party of thirty- 
nine men who were three mouths in reaching their destination, and 
he is one of the few '49ers surviving in this state. On the voyage 
the supply of meat was exhausted and some of the people on the 
shijs died of scurvy, for a time there being no fresh food but fish. 
Soon after his arrival Mr. Noble began mining on the Feather 
river, and in niue months took out gold to the value of $20,000, 
sending some of his nuggets back East. Later he returned to his 
old home, married and brought his bride to California. Locating 
in the mining district of Marysville, he set himself uj) in Imsi- 
ness as a cooper, working over the material of old whisky barrels 
into kegs, which he sold profitably to miners, but he was burned out 
at Marysville, losing his all. After a time he went to San Fran- 
cisco, bought a cooper shop near Black Point, operated it success- 
fully two years and then sold it in order to remove to Soquel, Santa 
Cruz county, where he has since made his home. He bought an undi- 
vided one-ninth interest in the Soquel ranch of two thousand acres 
and in the Argumentation ranch of nine hundred acres, which he 
still owns. He was one of the early justices of the peace on the 
Pacific slope and is a member of the Pioneer Society of California. 
His wife, who died in 1907, bore him children as follows : Mrs. Char- 
lotte M. Lawson, of San Francisco; George A., of this review; Ed- 
ward T. ; Frederick Dent ; Prof. Charles A., of the University of 
California at Berkeley; and Walter. 

In Soquel, Santa Cruz county, Cal., George A. Noble grew to 
manhood, acquired his education and gained practical familiarity with 
fruit growing. He began his independent business life in 1878 as a 
fruitman near Fresno, on a tract of eighty acres, twenty of which 
was in vineyard, forty in fruit and the remaining twenty in alfalfa. 
In 1888 he moved to Seattle, Wash., where he was for a time a sue- 



276 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

cessfnl contractor and builder. Returning to California, he bought 
eighty acres at Savilla, near Atwell's Island, Tulare county, but 
owing to failure on the i^art of the vendors to furnish water accord- 
ing to their agreement he was compelled to abandon his holdings 
after two years' work and many improvements made on it. He 
then removed to Fresno, where he devoted his time to the cultiva- 
tion of Indian corn. In 1900 he settled at Visalia, renting twenty 
acres, which he afterward bought and still owns. He developed it 
into an orchard and is now doing well as a grower of peaches. His 
property, lying within the city limits of Visalia, is exceedingly 
valuable. In connection with his fruit growing he has done much 
contracting and building at Visalia since 1905, having erected, 
among other buildings, the Episcopal church, five houses for J. S. 
Johnson, the W. R. Pigg home, the M. J. Wells home, the Willow 
district schoolhouse and Mrs. Dyer's home. In the year 1912 he 
built the Bliss, Cutler and East L^Tine schoolhouses in Tulare county 
and is at present engaged on the new Presbyterian church at 
Visalia. The residence of Mrs. Oaks, opposite the new Baptist 
church in Visalia was also completed by him. Besides buildings of 
the classes mentioned he has built numerous cottages in different 
parts of the town, and his work has been such as to give him high 
standing among the builders and contractors of the county. He is 
a charter member of the local organization of Modern AVoodmen, 
and as a citizen is progressive, public spirited and hel]ifu] to all 
good interests of the community. 

In 1877 Mr. Noble married Miss Ot-to, a native of Germany, 
whose father, long in the employ of Claus Spreckels, built in Wis- 
consin the first beet sugar factory in the United States and later 
erected the Eldorado sugar factory, near San Francisco. Mrs. 
Noble has borne her husband six children, Augustus, Edgar, Rosa, 
Ewald, Gertrude and George. Rosa is the wife of Clarence Brown 
of Visalia. Mr. Noble has recently organized the California Build- 
ing Co., which has platted the Nobles Subdivision to Visalia and 
is now engaged in building houses and selling off lots to prosjiective 
homemakers, this being the finest available residence district in 
Visalia. The family home is at No. 820 West Mineral King ave- 
nue, Visalia. 



ANDREW G. BELZ 

As far back as the ancestral records can be traced the home of 
the Belz family has been in Germany. Christoff Belz, a Saxon by 
birth and a machinist by trade, came to the United States and set- 



TULAKE AND KINGS COUNTIES 277 

tied in Rome, N. Y., in 1854, and in that city he followed his trade 
throughout the remainder of his life. He married Margaret Sclmuer, 
also a native of Saxony, who died at the home of her son, Andrew 
G., when she had reached the advanced age of eighty-nine years. 
She bore her husband four children, of whom Andrew G., the eldest, 
was the only one to make his home in California. In their religious 
belief Christoff Belz and his wife were Lutherans, devoted to their 
church and contributing to the limit of their ability to all its various 
interests. 

In Saxe-Meiningen, Germany, Andrew G. Belz was born Janu- 
ary .31, 18,32. In his youth he learned the machinist's trade, attend- 
ing a .mechanical school, in which he specialized as an ironworker 
and a locksmith. Subsequently he served for two years in the army 
of his native country, as required by law, but the service was so dis- 
tasteful to him that he fled to the United States to escape the third 
and last year. In 1854 he accompanied his father to the United States, 
settling in Rome, N. Y., where his first occupation was burning char- 
coal. From New York state he went to Pennsylvania, subsequently 
to Jefferson county. Wis., and finally, in 1862, he came to California. 
In 1864 he became a pioneer settler in Visalia, where he set up 
the first blacksmith shop, and here it was that he welded the first 
four-inch wagon tire that was made in the county. He continued to 
follow the blacksmith business here with good success until the '80s, 
when the failure of his eyesight made it necessary for him to give 
it up. P^ollowing this he became interested in the hotel business, and 
on the site of his blacksmith shop he erected the Pacific lodging house. 
As this was near the Southern Pacific depot it had a good patronage 
from the first and is still dispensing hospitality to the weary wayfarer. 
At Watertown, Wis., August 17, 1874, Mr. Belz was married to 
Miss Caroline Wegman, a daughter of George J. and Caroline 
(Wennerholdt) Wegman. A sketch of the former will be found else- 
where in this volume. Three children have blessed the marriage of 
Mr. and Mrs. Belz, as follows: George A., Frank A. and Eliza M., 
the latter the wife of E. Blair. George A. is a graduate of the San 
Jose state normal school, class of 1902. Frank attended the grammar 
school, passed three years in high school, and then attended Santa 
Clara college. Finally both sons entered the University of Wisconsin 
and graduated from the college of agriculture connected with that 
well-known institution. They are now engaged in carrying on scien- 
tific farming and dairying on the old Wegman estate, and associated 
with them are Mr. and Mrs. Blair. The sons are young men of much 
aliility and of the highest integrity, who carry into their business the 
high ideals that made the names of their father and grandfather 
honored wherever they were known. Mr. and Mrs. Wegman fol- 
lowed their daughter to California in 1875 and settled on what is 



278 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

now known as the Wegman ranch, three and one-lialf miles north- 
east of Visalia. 

Just fifty years have passed since Mr. Belz came to California 
by way of Panama in 1862. From San Francisco, where he landed, 
he first went to Sacramento and then to Stockton, where he stacked 
about one thousand acres with wheat for Mr. Newton. All was 
destroyed in a flood, a circumstance which discouraged Mr. Belz with 
any future attempts at farming. After coming to Visalia in 1864 he 
worked for several men in the capacity of blacksmith before setting 
up a shop of his own. The passing of years has obliterated the 
memory of early discouragements and disappointments, and in the 
enjojinent of his present prosperity he rejoices that he persevered, 
adjusting himself to circumstances and conditions. 



HON. JUSTIN JACOBS 

The life story of Judge Justin Jacobs is interesting and should 
be instructive to the ambitious young man who desires to get on in 
the world in a high-minded way and to win substantial and creditable 
success. Justin Jacobs was born in Troy, N. Y., in 1844. His father, 
who had been an officer in the Seminole war, was connected with 
the United States arsenal at Troy until he was crippled for life by the 
explosion of ordnance in that military establishment. Then he went 
to Wisconsin and in 1847, when his son was three years old, the 
family settled near Waupun, where the future jurist was educated in 
the common school'.' When the Civil war broke out he was sixteen 
years old and, responding to President Lincoln's call for volunteers, 
he became one of the very young soldiers in the Federal army. On 
the same day he enlisted in the Sixteenth Regiment Wisconsin Vol- 
unteer Infantry, which was imder command of Colonel Fairchild; his 
brother Curtis enlisted in the Third Regiment Wisconsin Volunteer 
Infantry. The Sixteenth Wisconsin was assigned to the Department 
of the Tennessee and followed Grant and Sherman in all their long 
and brilliant campaigTis in the west. Private Jacobs took jjart in many 
hotly contested engagements, including that of Shiloh, where he was 
one of those who stood in the historic "Hornet's Nest." Exposure 
and bad surgical treatment resulted in the loss of one of his eyes and 
he was discharged from the service in March, 1865, so nearly blind 
that he was unable to resume his studies for a year and a half. How- 
ever the sight of his remaining eye was restored, and he soon became 
a student at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. After the 
junior year he entered the law department of that institution, from 
which he was graduated in 1871, and after two years spent as prin- 



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TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 281 

eipal of the Waiipnn public schools, he began the practice of his 
profession. He came to California in 1874 and until 1876 was con- 
nected with Tipton Lindsey of Visalia in professional work. In the 
year last mentioned he moved to Lemoore and built the first dwelling' 
house in the town on land which he bought from the railroad com- 
pany which was promoting development there. During the legal 
struggle between the settlers in what was once known as "the Mussel 
Slough Country" he was their attorney and ably defended them in the 
courts. In 1883 he sold his property at Lemoore and until 1885 was 
the law partner of L. H. Van Schaick, of San Francisco. Returning 
to Lemoore he was until 1891 the leading law^'er in Western Tulare 
eoimty, and in that year he took up his residence in Hanford, where 
for a year he had as his law partners M. L. Short and B. T. Mickle. 
When the western part of the county became settled and develojjed 
and a movement for the creation of a new county took form he 
was one of the advisors who supplied the legal knowledge upon which 
the work of separation and re-establishment was carried to success. 
This fact gives him standing in history as having been one of the 
founders of Kings county in 1893. He was elected superior judge 
of the new county and re-elected to succeed himself, and he won the 
reputation of being one of the ablest judges of the Superior Court 
of California. He was foremost in all the work of general develop- 
ment so long as he lived, instrumental in bringing about the bonding 
of the county for public school purposes and in establishing the 
Union high school and in securing good roads throughout the county. 
In the founding and building up of the First Unitarian church of 
Hanford he was a factor and of its congregation he was a member 
until he passed away. 

At Janesville, Wis., in 1872, Judge Jacobs married Miss Annie 
M. Lowber, a native of New York, and they had three children, Clara 
Belle, H. Scott and Louisa M. Fraternally he was an Odd Fellow, 
a Knight of Pythias, a member of the Ancient Order of United 
Workmen and of the Grand Army of the Rejmhlic, and passed all 
the chairs in each of these orders. He died September 23, 1898. 



JOHN W. STOKES 

Not only by reason of identilication with California during its 
early formative period, but also by virtue of his long association 
with the stock and farm interests of Tulare county Mr. Stokes holds 
a leading position among the citizens of the community. When in 
the winter of 1855 he came to the vicinity of his present location in 
Visalia few attempts had as yet been made to place the surrounding 



282 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

countrj' under cultivation, ^'isalia was a very small village, sur- 
rounded by a wilderness, and Mr. Stokes drove his cattle along the 
foothills east of Visalia, where now stand the thriving towns of 
Exeter and Lindsay. Game of all kinds abounded and it was not 
uncommon to see three hundred elks in one band. 

A native of Missouri, John W. Stokes was liorn in Daviess 
county, July 2, 1837, the son of Yancy B. Stokes, a native of Kentucky. 
Removing from Kentucky to Missouri iu an early day the latter 
engaged in farming and stock-raising, and became well known 
throughout the middle west through his large stock transactions. 
From 1840 until 1850 he made his home in Iowa, and on April 10 
of the last mentioned year he took up the march across the plains 
for California. He was accompanied on the trip bj- his son John W,. 
then a lad of about thirteen years, and the incidents of the ox-team 
journey covering seven months proved a source of imfailing interest 
to the youth. The party arrived at Hangtown on October 12 and 
the first winter was passed in Stockton, the father suffering ill- 
health the greater part of that season. It thus devolved upon the 
son to take care of the stock that winter, and with the opening of 
the spring father and son went to the Curtis Creek mines. They 
were especially fortunate in their mining experiences during the 
three months they were there, but all to no purpose, as the entire 
accumulation was stolen from Mr. Stokes' trunk. From there he 
went to Mokelumne river, Calaveras county, remaining there until 
the spring of 1852, when he located in Marysville on the Yuba river. 
The following spring and summer were spent in prospecting in the 
mines, after which he returned to Stockton. In the fall of that 
year he returned to Iowa and in 1853 he brought his family to Cali- 
fornia across the plains. The journey was broken by a stoj) in 
Carson Valley, where the family spent the winter, and the following 
spring they located in Contra Costa county, near Martinez. One 
year later, December 25, 1855, they came to Tulare county, locating 
on government land which Mi-. Stokes took up six miles west of 
Visalia. Here he engaged in general farming and stock-raising 
until selling the property to his son, after which he bought another 
tract in the same section, his holdings at the time of his death 
amounting to .sixteen hundred acres. He ])assed away March 4, 
1886. His wife, in maidenhood Elizabeth Moore and a native of 
Missouri, also died in California. 

A family of six sons and five daughters was born to this pioneer 
couple. Only three of the children, S. C, B. F. and J. "W., are 
living in Tulare county. Two daughters, Martha J. Sanders and 
Hattie Webb, are residents of the state, and Mrs. Rachel Brewer, 
the eldest of the children living, makes her home in Iowa. The 
school advantages that fell to the lot of John "W. Stokes were limited. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 283 

for his entire boyhood was passed on the frontier, first in Iowa 
and later in California. In 1853, while his father returned to Iowa 
for the remainder of the family, he went to the mines at Hangtown 
with a brother, buying flour and other stuff which they sold to the 
emigrants, flour ))ringing $1 per pound. They raised water melons 
in Carson valley and sold them for $1 each. Coming to Tulare 
county with the family, J. W. Stokes was for some time associated 
in general farming and stock-raising on property which was later 
sold to the son, as previously stated. The latter afterward branched 
out along the same lines on a large scale and at one time owned 
as high as sixteen thousand acres of land. Considerable of this has 
since been disposed of, although he still owns valuable farm lands in 
the county. He can truly be numbered among the extensive and 
successful stockmen of Tulare county. 

It was in Tulare county that Mr. Stokes' first marriage occurred, 
uniting him with Rachel M. Gibson, a native of Missouri. She died 
in San Luis Obispo county, Cal., leaving the following children : 
Christina, the wife of S. N. Chase; John Thomas; Elta; Miles 
Andrew and Claud. Subsequently, in Visalia, Mr. Stokes was 
married to Nancy Liggett, a native of Tennessee. The two children 
born of this marriage are Henry J., a rancher near Goshen, and 
Roxanna, the wife of C'. B. Dorrity. Mr. Stokes espouses the prin- 
ci])les of the Republican ])arty, as did his father before him. 



JAMES HENRY CLAY McFARLAND 

As rancher, stockman and horticulturist James H. C. McFarland 
has become one of the most prominent citizens of his connnunity. 
His activities date from 1891, when he bought his pro]ierty south 
of Tulare. He was born in Si)ringfield, Greene county. Mo., August 
19, 1849, son of William and Martha (Roberts) McFarland, the 
youngest of their family of three sons and five daughters, all of 
whom grew to maturity and five of whom are living. William Mc- 
Farland was taken to Coo]ier county, Mo., by Jacob McFarland, his 
father, who was a native of North Carolina, and there he grew uji, 
was educated and learned the work of the farmer and stockman. It 
was as such that he was engaged during the active years of his life 
five miles from Si)ringfield, where he ])assed away in 18fi.3. A Whig 
and a Union man, he organized the first Home Guards in Greene 
county. Each of his three sons was a volunteer in the Union ser- 
vice: George, now of Springfield, having borne arms in a Missouri 
regiment; John, also of Springfield, in the Eighth Missouri Cavalry; 
and James Henry Clay in Company F, Fourteenth Missouri Cavalrv, 



284 TULARE AND KINGS COTJNTIES 

into which he was inustered at Springfield in March, 1865, when he 
was in his sixteenth year. "William McFarland married Martha 
Eoberts, a native of east Tennessee, whose father, John Roberts, 
took his family to Cooper county. Mo., and later to Greene county, 
where he died. Mrs. McFarland 's death occurred in 1880. 

On his father's farm in Missouri James H. C. McFarland was 
reared to manhood. lie attended the district school near his home 
until he was obliged to leave it in order to go to work. After his 
enlistment as a soldier his regiment was detailed for frontier duty 
against Indians in western Kansas, Colorado and New Mexico. A 
battle with the Cheyennes and Comanches was fought at Salt River 
and the Indians were defeated, but the cavalry remained on the 
ground until the government effected a treaty with the Indians, where 
Wichita, Kans., now stands. Mr. McFarland was mustered out of 
service at Fort Leavenworth in November, 1865, and was later dis- 
charged at St. Louis. He was at that time a few months past his 
sixteenth birthday, and he went back to school, but left it soon after- 
ward to become a farmer and stockraiser on his own account. He 
successfully conducted an eighty-acre farm five miles from Spring- 
field until 1887, when he came to California and located in Tulare 
county. He rented three hundred acres of the Bishop Colony land, 
east of Tulare, for two years. Then he rented two hundred and forty 
acres of the Zumwalt ranch for a year and forty acres belonging 
to Mrs. Traverse. In the spring of 1891 he bought twenty acres 
of the Oakland Colony tract, which he put in alfalfa. He also 
rented two hundred and forty acres of the Gould ranch in the 
Waukena section, which he farmed to grain for three years. In the 
fall of 1894 he and his brother-in-law rented four thousand acres, 
east of Lindsay, which was a part of the Tuohy ranch, and farmed 
it one year. The following year they farmed the Gould ranch and 
in 1896 operated two hundred and forty acres of the Woods place 
in the Poplar section. He also bought three hundred and twenty 
acres on the bayou, three miles south of Tulare, where he raised 
stock. That place he sold in 1904 and bou^iit sixty acres adjoining 
his twenty acres in the Oakland Colony tract, which he put under 
alfalfa. There he lived until 1910, when he sold the property and 
boiight eighty acres of the John Shufflebean ranch, two miles west 
of town, all of which he operates himself and on which his residence 
is located. He has installed an electric power plant for pumping. 

In 1869 Mr. McFarland married, near Springfield, Mo., Miss 
Martha J. Wharton, a native of Greene county, that state, and a 
daughter of Emsley Wharton, born in North Carolina, who settled 
early in Missouri and died there some time after the Civil war, in 
which he saw' service in the Eighth Missouri Cavalry, U. S. A. To 
Mr. and Mrs. McFarland have been born two children. Their daugh- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 287 

ter Clara married W. J. Abercrombie of Tulare. Their son Charles 
G. is a rancher near that city. Mrs. McFarland is a member of the 
Methodist Episcopal church. In i^olitics Mr. McFarland is Repub- 
lican. 



LITCHFIELD YOUNG MONTGOMERY 

Of those who are encased in ranchino' and stock-raisiuf? in the 
vicinity of Hanford, Kinj^s county, none stand higher in public favor 
than L. Y. Montgomery, who came to this county in January, 1881, 
and during the long time that has elapsed since has demonstrated 
the value of industry and fair dealing in the making of a career 
of usefulness and honor. Mr. Montgomery was born in East Ten- 
nessee on May 17, 1857, the son of William Glaspy and Mary Jane 
(Burton) Montgomery, natives respectively of Tennessee and Vir- 
ginia. Both passed away on the old homestead, the father when 
about seventy years old, and the mother also lived to pass her sev- 
entieth year. L. Y. Montgomery was educated in public schools near 
the family plantation and at Maryville College. He was early 
instructed in all of the details of successful farming as conducted 
in that part of the country at the time, and may be said to have 
been in the fields since he was a lad of ten years. After he left 
college he assumed charge of his father's business, managing it for 
a short time, and in January, 1879, he went to Louisiana, where he 
was much enthused over the fine opportunities which the farming- 
interests of that state offered to a young man, and in leaving there 
he felt that he was turning his back on fortune, besides leaving 
behind many appreciated friends whom he had made among the 
planters. However, falling a victim to malaria, he decided to seek 
a change of climate and came to California. 

Mr. Montgomery's first employment in the Golden State was 
in the redwood lumber camps controlled by San Francisco parties, 
and in June, 1881, he found work in the harvest fields for a time. 
In the latter part of that year he came to Grangeville, then Tulare 
county, and for the following two years was paid well-earned wages 
by G. H. Hackett for ranch work. After he had saved some money 
he leased land and for some time was successful as a farmer on his 
own account; still later on, as success smiled on his efforts, he 
became a land-owner and engaged in general farming and stock- 
raising. At this time he owns his home place of eighty aci'es. five 
miles north of Hanford, besides two hundred acres in Fresno county, 
all of which is well improved. lie has forty acres in fruit, to the 



288 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

cultivation of which he gives considerable attention. He is interested 
in irrigation i^rojects and is a director of the People's Ditch com- 
pany and also of the Riverside Ditch company. For four years, 
from 1906 to 1910, he served as supervisor from the third district 
of Kings county and while a member of that body the new county 
hospital was erected and the courthouse park was enlarged. 

On November 30, 1891, occurred the marriage of L. Y. Mont- 
gomery and Miss Jennie G. Latham, who was a native of Sutter 
county, born on August 7, 1870. They have three sons, Cloyd Bur- 
ton, a student in Heald's Business College at Fresno; Russell 
Latham and Creed Litchfield. Mr. and Mrs. Montgomery are mem- 
bers of the Kings River Methodist Episcopal church and both be- 
long to the order of Rebekahs, and he is a member of the Odd Fel- 
lows. In all matters pertaining to the well-being of the county or 
the people, Mr. Montgomery has always shown his public spirit and 
has advocated and supported measures to the best of his ability along 
those lines. To such men as he the county owes its development and 
standing among its sister counties of the state. 



EZRA LATHROP 

The wise counsel, good judgment and progressive spirit of Ezra 
Lathrop have been factors in the upbuilding and prosperity of Tulare, 
Cal. Mr. Lathrop came from his old Iowa home to Nevada, but soon 
afterward, in 1866, came to California, and since 1873 he has lived in 
Tulare. His family is of English descent and was early established in 
the state of New York. William and Perrin Lathrop, his grandfather 
and father respectively, were born there, but settled in Susquehanna 
county. Pa., where the former died. The latter became a ])ioneer at 
Cascade, Dubuque county, Iowa, but soon went to Center Point, near 
Cedar Falls, in Blackhawk county, where he improved a farm. Later 
he farmed in Louisa county, that state, but passed his declining years 
in Blackhawk county. Clementine Dowdney, who liecame his wife, 
was of Eastern birth, but passed away near Center Point, Iowa. She 
bore her husband two sons and a daughter: Ezra of Tulare; Gilead 
P., who died in the Civil war, a member of the Eighth Regiment, Iowa 
Volunteer Infantry; and Mrs. Mary Ellen Brown, who lives in Tulare 
county, north of Visalia. 

At Rush, near Montrose, Susquehanna, Pa., Ezra Lathro]i was 
born in 1839 and there he began attending district schools. He was 
ten years old when his family went to Iowa and sixteen when his 
mother died, and then he set out to make his own way in the world. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 289 

Foi" a time he was employed on farms, but in 18(i4 sought fortune in 
the West as a member of an emii^rant party that crossed the plains. 
The Indians were unusually troublesome at that time, but the train 
went unmolested up the Platte and by way of Salt Lake City to Ne- 
vada, where Mr. Lathrop began farming on the East Walker river. 
In 1865 he was teaming at Dayton and in 1866 he was farming near 
Suisun, Cal., whence he removed three years later to Montezuma Hill. 
In 1873 he came to Tulare and built the residence which has since been 
his home and found employment as a driver of six-horse teams in 
mountain freighting. In 1874 he homesteaded eighty acres of gov- 
ernment land north of Tulare, which, with other lands, he began to 
cultivate six years later, and b\' adjoining purchases he came to own 
four hundred and tliirty acres. He formerly owned the Round Valley 
ranch of thirty-eight hundi-ed acres. At this time his holdings com- 
prise four hundred and forty acres in one body, all under ditch; five 
hundred and sixty acres, south of Tulare; and eighty acres southeast 
of that city. He was for a time a director in the Rockyford Irrigation 
Ditch Company. 

In 1882 Mr. Lathrop embarked in the lumber business and soon 
built up a valuable trade, but after eighteen months a concern that 
had been his most bitter comjietitor and which he had worsted sold out 
to Moore & Smith, a company financially very strong. Unable to hold 
his own against such opposition, he sold out in 1884 to the Puget 
Sound Lumber Company, which ap])ointed him its local agent. In 
1886 the two concerns were merged as the San Joaquin Lumlier Com- 
pany and his agency was continued. When the new comi)any was 
incorporated he became its manager and had its atfairs in charge 
until Xoveml)er, 1898, when it retired from business. He was one of 
the ]iromoters of the Gas Company of Tulare, was financially inter- 
ested in it when it was incorporated, January, 1884, and has been its 
president since May, 1885. Its electric light plant dates from 1890 
and since 1894 it has manufactured no gas. His patriotic work in 
bringing about the comiiromise with the bondholders of the Tulare 
Irrigation district resulted in a gi'aud jollification and bond burning 
which is a part of the history of Tulare. He has performed efficient 
service as fire commissioner and school trustee and has helped the 
people of the town by his wise and conservative judgment in financial 
affairs. In 1885 he assisted in the organization of the bank of Tulare, 
the oldest in the town, of which he was president from that day to the 
time of his death, November 17, 1908, and which has been an important 
aid to the welfare of the people. It is apparent that a record of the 
life of Mr. Lathrop is in a sense a record of the jirogress and develop- 
ment of Tulare, for he was inseparably identified with many of its 
leading interests. Politically he was a Democrat until 1896. Then, 
unable to su|)iioit tlie financial tlicories of Mr. Bryan, lie liccnme a Re- 



290 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

publican. Fraternally he affiliates with the Ancient Order of United 
Workmen, which has a flourishing lodge at Tulare. 

In Iowa, Mr. Lathrop married Miss Virginia Blake, a native of 
Oakland, that state, who bore him twin daughters and died in 1898. 
One of the daughters. Martha Adeline, married G. W. Bauman, a l)io- 
graphical sketch of whom will be found in this volume, and the other, 
Matilda Eveline, married W. J. Sturgeon. 

On January 20, 1908, Mr. Lathrop married Mrs. Lena Ayer, whose 
maiden name was Lena De Vine, born in Nova Scotia. Mr. and Mrs. 
Ayer came to California from Boston. Mass., December. 1890. 



CHAELES TILDEN ROSSON, M. D. 

The profession of medicine and surgery is becoming more and 
more sijecialized as time passes, and its two principal branches are 
today more distinct and individual than they have ever been before. 
One of the medical profession in Kings county, Cal, who is becom- 
ing well known in central California through his successful devotion 
to surgery is Charles Tilden Rossou. M. D.. of Hanford, who was 
born in Vergennes, Jackson county. 111., in 1876, and was there edu- 
cated in the public schools. In 1894, when he was about eighteen 
years old, he came to Tulare county, Cal. It was in the College of 
Physicians and Surgeons of San Francisco that he finished his pro- 
fessional education and was graduated with the M. D. degree in, 
1903, and in that and the following year he was house surgeon in the 
City and County Hospital at San Francisco. In 1904 he came to 
Hanford and for a time made the office of Dr. Holmes his head- 
quarters, but it was not long before he established an independent 
office, which is now located in the Em]3orium biiilding. 

It is to surgery that Dr. Rosson has given special attention and 
it is as a surgeon that he has developed an ability and won a suc- 
cess that have made him known throughout a wide territory sur- 
rounding Hanford. An idea of his progressiveness and of his ini- 
tiative in his chosen field may be conveyed by the statement that he 
was one of the first to perform laparotomy in Kings county. Lentil 
1911 he was for some years surgeon in Central California for the 
Santa Fe Railway system and he is now Southern Pacific Railroad 
surgeon and physician. He is a member of the San Joaquin Medi- 
cal Society, the Fresno County Medical Society, the California State 
Medical Society and the American Medical Association, and is presi- 
dent of the Hanford Sauitorium, Inc. Though he is in constant de- 
mand as a family physician, he is in still wider demand as a sur- 




a ^ Jii^iJ 




<f ^ ^^^^^LJb 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 295 

geou aud does a large share of the capital surgery in the county; 
his work in this line is gradually extending to neighboring counties. 
In 1901 Dr. Rossou married Miss Burnett of Tulare, who has 
borne him three sous, John, Charles and Robert. Socially he affili- 
ates with the Improved Order of Red Men and with Hanford Lodge 
No. 1259, B. P. 0. E. Politically he is patriotically interested, and 
as a citizen he gives his aid to the development of Hanford and its 
interests and to the uplift of its people of all classes. 



S. C. STOKES 

It was iu Decatur county, Iowa, that S. C. Stokes was born, 
November 15, 1845, and one of his early recollections is of fishing in 
the Platte when he got on his hook a large catfish which might have 
pulled him into the river if his mother had not come to his rescue 
and helloed him land it. He was then nearly five years old. His 
parents were Yancy B. and Elizabeth (Moore) Stokes, the father 
and mother both born in Kentucky in 1814. In 1850 they started 
overland to California, bringing their children; their youngest, a 
daughter, was born later in Carson valley, Nev. They were six 
months in making the journey and their adventures were many. In 
parties before and behind them numerous men and women died of 
cholera; Mrs. Stokes was attacked by that dread disease, but was 
saved by the prompt administration of burned brandy. At Rocky 
Ford there was an Indian attack and a Frenchman was chased into 
camp, barely escaping with his life. After mining for a time at 
Hangtown, Mr. Stokes returned to Iowa with $6,000 in gold slugs 
of the value of $50 each, arriving in 1852. Returning to California 
by way of the isthmus of Panama he secured fifty head of Spanish 
heifers in Mexico, which he drove to his destination. His activities 
were then centered in Cottonwood and Grapevine, and he bought 
three hundred and twenty acres of railroad land at $5 an acre, 
improving it with a house and other buildings and appurtenances 
and he entered upon a career of measurable success. 

In 1866 S. ('. Stokes married Sarah J. Lj^tle, a native of Mis- 
souri, who was brought across the plains by her parents in the early 
'50s, and she bore him these children : Mary, Charles, William, John, 
Robert, Prentice and Corinthia (twins), and Harry. Mary became the 
wife of Nathan Bristol, a Civil war veteran, and has borne him a 
son and a daughter. Charles married Mary Johnson and has chil- 
dren named Erma, Ella, Iva and Florence; his home is near Visalia. 
William married Charlotte Vasques and they live in Cottonwood 
valley; their chiidixm are Stokley, Rub.y, George, Gladys, Odetta, 



296 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Shirley, Lottie, Neavie and Rachel. John married Clara Enorgan 
and lives at Portland, Ore. Robert married Rebecca Mankins and 
lives in Fresno county, where he deals in horses. They have a son 
named Rucen. Prentice, who lives in Goshen, married Hazel Stearns. 
Corinthia married Wallace Evans and has a son named Marshall, 
their home being at Cottonwood; they have two children. Harry 
married Nellie Adams. 

Pioneers and men of prominence in earlier days, of every char- 
acter, were well-known to Mr. Stokes. He relates that Sontag and 
Evans, who won historic distinction as stage robbers, lived in the 
mountains near him for four years. He has from young manhood 
been prominent in public affairs, has been active as a Republican and 
has for a number of years held the office of school trustee. He tells 
that in 1856-57 antelope were as numerous in Stokes valley as rab- 
bits and grizzly bear were plentiful in the woods all round about. 
Once, when he was fishing, he came upon a female bear with cubs. 
She chased him for some distance. He threw his hat in her face 
and she tore it to pieces while he made good his escape. In his 
younger days he killed many elk, which he took home in his big 
wagon. There is a tree standing on Stokes mountain in the shade 
of which he rested when he was only thirteen years old. He and 
others went to Mexico and bought a lot of Spanish cows, which they 
bred to American cattle until they had a herd of three thousand. 
In 1857 a bear killed several hogs in the neighborhood and John Mc- 
Huam. Y. B. Stokes, three of the Halsteads and John Stokes went 
after him and found him, much to their own discomf orture ; for he 
killed several dogs, treed the men and gave them a fight which 
lasted nearly all day. then escaped from them and killed nine sows 
that cost $50 per head. Mr. Stokes's mother killed many antelope 
with her grandfather's gun, the barrel of which is a valuable family 
possession at this time. He remembers that in 1862, just after the 
big flood, a party of hunters chased a band of antelope twenty miles 
without getting an animal. Mr. Stokes remembers when a neighbor, 
Cook Everton, set a spring gun in his apple orchard for bear and 
was himself accidentally shot by it. Y. B. Stokes served in the Indian 
war of 1856, and he was one of the original locators of the Mineral 
King mine. 



WOOSTER B. CARTMILL 

The Tulare County Co-operative Creamery Association, the larg- 
est institution of the kind in the country, was organized in 190.3 and 
lias branches at Visalia and at Corcoran. Its officers are: S. B. An- 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 297 

derson, president; P. E. Reinhart, vice-president; M. G. Cottle, secre- 
tary; the above mentioned and William Small and Charles Meador, 
directors; Wooster B. Cartmill, manager. The main station, at Tu- 
lare, occupies a modern brick building, which is equipi)ed with up-to- 
date machiuery and appliances of all kinds necessary to its successful 
operation. Its output of two tons of butter daily is sold in bulk to the 
Los Angeles Creamery. The milk consumed, that of four thousand 
cows, is supplied by dairymen in the vicinity of Tulare. 

As stated above, the active and practical management of this great 
industry is in the hands of Wooster B. Cartmill. This gentleman, 
well known personally or by reputation in dairy circles throughout the 
San Joaquin Valley, is a native son of California. He was born in 
Amador county, Cal., in 1857, a son of Dr. W. F. and Sophia (Barnes) 
Cartmill. His father was a native of Ohio; his mother was born in 
Missouri. In 1861, when the immediate subject of this notice was four 
years old, his family moved to Tulare county. There he was reared 
and educated and there he obtained a practical knowledge of Cali- 
fornia farming, under his father's thorough instruction. For years he 
assisted the elder Cartmill on the family's big ranch of twelve hun- 
dred acres, and later he took charge of it and managed it successfully 
until about 1898. It included eighty acres of prunes, peaches and 
grapes, a hundred and sixty acres of alfalfa and a fine dairy. His 
father upon coming to Tulare count}' made his beginning as a dairy- 
man, by running a farm dairy from 1862 to 1870. He made butter 
which he sold at the mines in Tulare and Inyo counties in the early 
and interesting days, and became one of the leaders in the industry. 
Naturally, the younger Cartmill early in life acquired a ])ractical 
knowledge of dairying. He operated the old D. K. Zumwalt creamery 
from 1889 to 1900, and in the latter year established a skimming sta- 
tion of his own at Tulare, which was really the beginning of the his- 
tory of the Tulare Co-operative Creamery Association, as the company 
took over that enterprise and its visible property in October, 1903. 
Mr. Cartmill was one of the original directors of the Tulare Irrigation 
Ditch District. He was one of its most enthusiastic and efficient i^ro- 
moters and was personally active four years in its establishment and 
maintenance. He is the owner of a two hunderd and forty-acre tract 
near Tulare, which he rents out. In all the interests of the city and 
county he takes a public-spirited interest. He is a Mason and as such 
is identified with local organizations of the order, and be also affiliates 
with the order of Woodmen of the World. 

Twice has Mr. Cartmill married, the first time, in 1883, to Miss 
Hatch, and she bore him a daughter, who is Mrs. W. C. Eldridge. His 
present wife, whom he married in 1894, was Mrs. Jane Henry. They 
have three children — May, Eva, and William G. Cartmill. 

Mrs. Cartmill 's maiden name was Jane Gilmer. She is the daugh- 



298 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

ter of Rufus Gilmer, of Visalia. By her first busbaud, Albert Henry, 
who died in 1891, she had two children. Rufus and Albert are farm- 
ers, operating the old Henry farm near Porterville. 



CASSIUS M. BLOWERS 

This pioneer farmer and business man, wliose ranch is three miles 
northwest of Hanford, Kings county, Cal., has come to his present 
prominence only after a struggle in which he wrung success out of 
situations that to many another man would have spelled ruin. When 
he first saw Kings county, in 1874, it was a desert, sandy and prac- 
tically worthless, but irrigation, which he long advocated, has resulted 
in its reclamation. The laud, then worth next to nothing, is now 
valued at $250 an acre and upward. 

To the student of history genealogy is a fascinating pursuit and 
it is to be regretted that the lack of printing in the earlier ages 
rendered an interesting work so difficult. Cassius M. Blowers is de- 
scended from an Englishman, John O. Blowers, his grandfather, who 
early settled in Crawford county, Ohio, where he pre-empted govern- 
ment land on which he died in his eighty-fifth year. Not only was 
he a pioneer farmer, but he was a pioneer preacher of the Methodist 
faith, who often discoursed to the people of Bucyrus. His son, 
Lemuel Lane Blowers, born on the pioneer's Ohio farm, came to 
California in 1850, making the trip overland. For a time he mined 
on the American river, but in 1854 he took up land in Yolo county, 
where he died in 1855. He had married Caroline Foster, of Ohio 
birth, and she had died in 1849, leaving five children, of whom Cassius 
M., born December 20, 1845, was the fourth. The boy was about 
four years old when his mother died and between nine and ten years 
old when his father passed away, aged thirty-eight years. 

When Mr. Blowers was ten years old he was brought to Califor- 
nia by his uncle, R. B. Blowers, who became a pioneer fruit grower 
in this state and grew the first California raisins. The boy lived on 
his uncle's ranch near Woodland, Yolo county, then began business 
for himself, teaming to Nevada and the mountain district when he 
was but fifteen years old. 

His next venture was as a farmer in Yolo county, but in 1874 
he transferred his interests to Kings county, where he has since 
lived. He bought a railroad laud claim for $600, but the land was 
a waste of desert sand, unfit for cultivation. In so doing he was 
planning for the future and he soon became one of the promoters 
of the Lower Kings river. Last Chance and People's irrigation ditches, 
which were completed in 1877. Then Mr. Blowers sowed his land to 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 301 

wheat and the next year he set out a few vines. In 1883 he shipped 
the first raisins which were boxed in Tulare county, which then in- 
cliided the present Kings county, and he originated tlie system of 
employing fruit cutters at piece prices instead of on salary. At 
that time there were but three canneries in the state, San Jose, San 
Francisco and Sacramento. All had been paying day wages for em- 
ployees, and Chinese and white workers were intermingled in one 
large room. In 1886 Mr. Blowers went to Sacramento and induced 
the management of the cannery there to try piece work, which was 
done. The orientals were separated from the whites and so suc- 
cessful was this method that it has been generally adopted by all 
fruit growers throughout the state. 

In his home ranch Mr. Blowers has two hundred and forty acres, 
forty acres devoted to vines, seventy to peaches, apricots and other 
fruit, the remainder to grain and alfalfa. He owns also a stock 
and alfalfa ranch of two hundred and fifty acres in Kings county, 
formerly in Fresno county prior to the annexation, and a fruit, vine 
and alfalfa farm of eighty acres near Lemoore. 

The marriage of Mr. Blowers, January 19, 1875, united him 
with Miss Susie McLaughlin, and their eight children were born on 
the home ranch in Kings county. Hubert Lane is operating a ranch 
of thirty acres not far from his father's. Russell M. is farming and 
growing fruit on thirty acres of land given him by Mr. Blowers. 
Olive G. married George Blowers, who is the proprietor of a machine 
shop in San Francisco. Francis is ranching on fifty acres of land 
given him by his father. Bessie, who died in 1905, was the wife of 
Fred Arthur, who is farming in Kings county. Mary, Rali)h and 
Viola Susan are members of their parents' household. Mr. Blowers 
has long taken an active part in the affairs of the Raisin Growers' 
association and has been for about a quarter of a century president 
of the Last Chance Ditch corporation. Politically he is a Republican. 
His interest in school affairs impelled him to fill the duties of 
school trustee about twenty years, and his ])ul)lic s]iirit, many times 
tried, has not been found wanting. 



CAFT. HARRISON WHITE 

The name of White has long been associated with affairs in 
the United States, dating in fact from the historic Mayflower, when 
Peregrine White came to these shores and endured the liardshi])S 
and trials which are woven in the history-making of the Atlantic coast. 
From this intrepid jiioneer liave descended men of valor in war and 
painstaking industry in times of peace. During the Revolutionary 



302 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

war Silas White, a native of New York state, enlisted in a company 
from that state, and as captain of the company, led his men into the 
thickest of many a struggle with the opposing Tory forces. No 
less valiant was a son and namesake of this Revolutionary captain, 
who left his native state. New York, and in 1842 settled on the Fox 
river in Illinois, becoming a pioneer farmer of La Salle county. 
He did not long survive his immigration to the then frontier, for .he 
passed away six years after locating upon his farm. He was a man 
whose life had been uniformly upright, with character unstained, and 
it was this heritage that he left to his widow, who long survived him. 
In maidenhood she was Maria MacClave. The MacClave family came 
from Scotland to America in an early day and settled in New York, 
and it was in Albany, that state, that ^laria MacClave was born. 
She lived to attain the venerable age of ninety-eight years, dying in 
Illinois. Of the ten children who attained mature years three are 
now living, one of whom, Selem, is a resident of Coal City, (irundy 
county. 111. He served throughout the entire period of the Civil 
war, holding the rank of captain of a company in the Fifty-third 
Illinois Infantry. Mrs. Cyrus W. Cook, a daughter, is residing at 
Sandwich, Illinois. 

Harrison White was born in S^Tacuse, N. Y., June 28, 1836. 
At the a.ge of six years he accompanied his parents to Illinois, there 
obtaining a primary education in the public schools, after which he 
alternated teachin,g school with attendance at Wheaton College. The 
breaking out of the Civil war at this time was destined to add an 
important chapter to his interesting life. He responded to the call 
of President Lincoln for three-months men and in April, 1861, he 
became a member of Company F, Eleventh Illinois Infantry. When 
his three-months term had expired and he was honorably discharged 
from the service, he determined to enlist in the cavalry branch of the 
armv, and aecordin.gly he assisted in the organization of Company 
B, Fourth Illinois Cavalry, which was mustered into service at Ottawa 
in August of 1861, and from there made its way to Cairo. Among 
the engagements in which he participated were those at Forts Henry 
and Donelson, Shiloh, Corinth and Vicksburg. It was in the siege 
of the last mentioned city that his company was detailed as an escort 
to General Grant, continuing as such until the latter was oi'dered 
east as commander-in-chief. Soon afterward Captain White was 
placed on detached service and for a short time was assistant quar- 
termaster at '^'icksbur.g. after which he joined his regiment and aided 
General Custer in Louisiana during the reconstruction period. In 
Memphis, Teuu., January 26, 1866, he was honorably discharged witli 
the rank of Captain, having been promoted to that office as a reward 
for meritorious service at Vicksburg. Previous to this he had served 
as an orderly sergeant. Notwithstanding the fact that he was often 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 303 

in the midst of fierce struggles, and witnessed tlie wounding and death 
of comrades on every hand, he esca]ied without injury until the battle 
of Shiloh, where a piece of shell killed his horse and knocked him 
senseless. Soon recovering, however, he joined his comrades. 

Following his retirement from the army Captain White made 
his home on a rented plantation at Yazoo Pass, Miss., but l)otli climate 
and occupation proved uusuited to his health and it was on this 
account that he returned to Illinois. For several months he con- 
ducted a mercantile establishment at Sandwich, 111., but in the fall 
of 1868 he sold the business and left Illinois. Traveling up the 
Missouri he reached Fort Benton, and from there went to Helena, 
Mont., where he engaged in merchandising, and subsequently he 
carried on a store in a mining camp. The fall of 1869 found him 
in Illinois on a visit to friends and relatives, and in the spring of 
the following year he came to California, settlement being made in 
Porterville, Tulare county. For the first two years of his residence 
there he was interested in the sheep business, having also ]nirchased 
a ranch, Imt five years later he again became interested in the 
mercantile business, conducting a general store in connection with 
Porter Putnam. His identification with Visalia dates from the year 
1877. Three years after making this city his home he was apjiointed 
deputy to the internal revenue collector, William Iligby, whose dis- 
trict embraced Kern, Tulare, Fresno, Merced and Stanislaus counties, 
with headquarters in Visalia. Captain White retained the office of 
deputy until 1889, during which time he also continued his ranch and 
sheep interests and still owns a ranch of two hundred and forty 
acres on the Tule river, the property now being leased to a tenant. 
The land is partially under irrigation, water being provided by means 
of a pumping plant connected with wells. His holdings also include 
grazing lands. It was during 1891 that Captain White was appointed 
under-sheriff to Sherit¥ Overall, an office which he held for eighteen 
months. Subsequently, from 189.3 to 1895, he served by appointment 
as United States ganger. It was in 1898 that he was appointed to 
the position which he held until retiring in 1911, — that of supervisor 
of the southern district of the Sierra Forest reserve, comi)rising 
more than two million acres in Kern, Fresno, Tulare and Inyo 
counties, with headquarters in Visalia. It goes without saving that 
the position entailed many responsibilities, but he has proved amply 
qualified to discharge every duty with a master hand, his long 
ex])erience in many avenues of activity having equipped him with 
a breadth of knowledge and extent of information j^otli rare and 
valuable. rV 

It was after coming to Visalia that Cai)tain White foi'uied 
domestic ties by his marriage with Miss Ilattie Pauline Anthony, a 
native of Watertown, N. Y. By right of his service in the Civil war 



304 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Oaptain White is associated with the Grand Army of the Republic, 
twice serving- as commander of Gen. George Wright Post No. 111. 
Under appointment l)y Governor Waterman he held the position of 
major and quartermaster on the staff of General Budd, of the 
California National Guard. A leader in the ranks of the Republican 
party, for twelve years or more he was secretary of the Republican 
conntj^ central committee and for two terms officiated as its chairman. 
He took an active part in the councils of that liody, as he did subse- 
quently as a member of the congressional committee. It is unneces- 
sary to state that a man of his breadth of character should he loved 
and respected by all, irrespective of party affiliation, for the position 
which he holds represents the possession of ability of high order, 
sterling qualities and a breadth of patriotism that knows no party 
distincti'^n. 



WILLIAM J. HIGDON 

A native son of California, William J. Higdon was liorn in 
Nevada county, in 1876. When he was seven years old his parents 
moved to the Capay valley, in Yolo comity, where he was educated 
in the public schools and acquired some knowledge of farming. In 
1898, when he was about twenty-two years old, he followed the lure 
of the gold-seeker to Alaska, where he remained a year and a half 
and in 1901 he came to Tulare county and for three years was in the 
livery business, first as proprietor of the Dexter stables then of the 
Grand stables, and finally of the City stables. After a year and a 
half spent in Tulare following his retirement from this business, he 
moved on to the I. N. Wright ranch of two hundred and fifiy-four 
acres, one hundred and seventy-four acres of which was within the 
city limits, and there engaged in farming, stock-raising and dairying, 
milking fifty to eighty cows. He owns two hundred and forty acres 
of other land, eighty acres of which is half a mile southeast and 
one hundred and sixty acres three miles southwest of bis homestead. 
The larger tract is used for farming and grazing and the smaller 
one is rented and devoted to the production of corn and other grain. 
One hundred and sixty acres of the home ranch is in alfalfa. Mr. 
Higdon keeps an average of about two hundred and fifty hogs and 
one hundred head of stock besides his milch cows. He is a stockholder 
in and a director of the Dairymen's Co-operative Creamery Co., and 
the Rochdale Store Co. of Tulare, and is a stockholder in the New 
Power Co. He has also been secretary of the Tulare County Dairy- 
men's association since its organization. 

Fraternally Mr. Higdon affiliates with the Independent Order 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 307 

of Odd Fellows. His puhlio spirit has led him to identify himself 
with mam' movements for the general benefit. On November 23, 
1904, he married Miss Hattie M. Wright, a native of Tulare and a 
daughter of Isaac N. AVright, who was instrumental in securing the 
location of the city of Tulare where it has been built, and who is 
mentioned fully elsewhere in this publication. Its boundaries include 
the old home place where his daughter was born. Mr. and Mrs. 
Higdon have a sou and a daughter, Alice Charlotte and Newton 
Elliott, who are now (1913) aged resiieetively seven and four years. 
Mrs. Higdon, a graduate of the State Normal school at San Jose, 
was for ten years a teacher in the public school at Tulare. 



FRED A. DODGE 

A native of Illinois, Mr. Dodge was born December 2, 1858, on 
the farm where his parents settled in 18.39, in Dunham township, 
McHeury county. His parents, Elisha and Susan Dodge, were pio- 
neers of that part of the west, coming from New York state to 
Illinois. They were of New England stock, Elisha being a native of 
Vermont, and his wife, who was Susan Smith, a native of New York 
state. 

The subject of this sketch was the eighth living child of their 
union, and was reared on the farm. His mother died in 1863 and his 
father subsequently married Mrs. Abigail Harkness. After the farm 
was sold they established a residence at Harvard, 111., where Fred 
entered the public school, and remained in that city until he completed 
the branches taught there at that time. His father died in Feb- 
ruary, 1878, and in the following summer he drove by team west to 
Parkersburg, Iowa, where his older brother, Frank L. Dodge, was 
engaged in the i)ublication of a weekly newsi)a])er called the Eclipse. 
There he entered the printing office and learned tlie ])rinter's trade. 
In 1880 he purchased an interest in the Eclipse, and subsequently, 
with his brother, established the Allison Trihimc, a weekly news- 
paper at Allison, tlie county seat of Butler county, Iowa. The two 
brothers conducted these pai)ers for a number of years, Init linally 
dissolved partnership, Fred becoming sole proprietor of tlie Par- 
kersburg paper, which he edited and ])ublished until August, 1887. 
when he sold it. 

On February 28, 1882, Mr. Dodge was united in marriage, at 
Parkersburg, Iowa, to Miss May F. Davis, a native of Maine. A 
daughter was born to them in Pai-kersbui'g, and in 1887 they moved 
to TIanford, Cal., where they ))iirchased five acres of land on the 
edge of what was then the town limits. Here they erected a cottage, 



308 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

and Mr. Dodge entered the office of the Ilanford Sentinel, wliich was 
established by David and Frank L. Dodge in February. 1886. Sub- 
sequently he purchased the half interest of David Dodge, and the 
firm of Dodge Brothers continued to i)u])lish tlie Sentinel until 1897, 
when Frank L. sold out his interest to J. E. Richmond. The firm 
name was then changed to Dodge & Richmond, since which time 
Fred A. Dodge has been the editor and Mr. Richmond tlie business 
manager of the paper. 

Mr. and Mrs. Dodge are the parents of two children, born in 
Ilanford, George Ra^^nond, born February 3, 1891, and Florence 
Mildred, born November 16, 1895. , 

Mr. Dodge has for more than thirt>' years been in the harness 
of a newspaper man, most of the time engaged at editorial woi-k. 
"While he has served many terms on boards of education, boards 
of library work, and on business and commercial committees, he has 
never sought political office. 



FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF LEMOORE 

That strong financial institution, the First National Bank of 
Lemoore, the policy of which from the first has been to extend to 
the business community all accommodations consistent with sound 
banking and which has been a potent factor in the upbuilding and 
develojjnient of Lemoore and its tributary territory, was organized 
June 9, 1905, and began business in July following. Its original 
capital stock was $25,000. all paid up. The first officers and direc- 
tors were : B. K. Sweetland, president ; Stiles McLaughlin, vice- 
president; F. J. P. Cockran, cashier; E. G. Sellers, C. H. Bailey, 
John Trimble and E. P. May. In February, 1912, its capital stock 
was increased to $50,000. The bjink has erected a fine two-story 
building, covering a ground space of seventy-five by one hundred 
feet, at Fox and D streets. It is a modern brick structure, contain- 
ing fine banking offices and the best facilities for the keeping of 
cash and valuable securities. It is the belief of the bank officials 
and of the general public that this banking establishment is as nearly 
fireproof and burglar-proof as it is possible to make it. 

The First National Bank of Lemoore has from the day of its 
opening steadily grown in the confidence of the business community 
of the city and surrounding country, and numbers among its de- 
positors many of the wealthiest and most important business men 
and citizens of that part of the county. The following are the names 
of its present officers and directors: C. H. Bailey, president; E. G. 
Sellers, vice-president; W. E. Dingley, cashier; G. B. Chinn, Stiles 
McLaughlin, L. S. Step, and J. K. Trimble. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 309 

VISALIA PLUMBING AND SHEET METAL COMPANY 

To be successful in the field of mechanics a man must neces- 
sarily possess thorough training in the science which he attempts 
to represent. The world of today demands skill in every line of 
labor, and the man who is not prepared to compete with his expert 
neighbor is beaten ere the fight begins. Apropos of the above 
sulijeet, Visalia is godmother to a plumbing and heating company 
of which she is justly proud, and, having helped to maintain its 
popularity, feels that she has a share in its success and growth. The 
most difficult points in the work of installing heating and plumbing- 
apparatus, the erection of windmills, tanks and troughs, etc., are 
accomplished by the Visalia Plumbing and Sbeet Metal Company 
with the greatest skill and ease, as may be attested by the many 
citizens who have been fortunate enough to secure their services. 

Visitors to the showrooms of the Visalia Plumbing and Heating 
Company feel well repaid for their trip, for there are displayed many 
models of the most up-to-date appliances for toilets, bathrooms, 
furnaces, etc., and they are conceded to have the finest and most 
up-to-date showroom of that character in any town between Fresno 
and Bakersfield. This business was started about five years ago 
in the Odd Fellows and Masons Imilding on Church street opposite 
the court house. Their fine sheet metal work is not the least of 
their accomplishments, as countless illustrations may testify. The 
mechanics whom they employ are the best that can be secured, and 
as they guarantee every detail of their work they have given general 
satisfaction. The business has grown rapidly and now its annual 
output amounts to $50,000 worth of business and the plant is indicated 
as one of the successful enter]jrises of the growing and prosperous 
city of Visalia. Against the moderate charges for services, no 
com]ilaint has ever been received; on the contrary, the people of 
Visalia and locality are unanimous in their opinion that the terms 
are low in comparison with the standard of ]ierfection maintained in 
their work. The firm is owned and controlled l)y Isaac Clark and 
Frank A. Newman, long established citizens of the community. 

Isaac Clark was born in P'rankfort, Maine, January V2, 1870, 
and u)ion comj^letion of his education learned the stone-cutter's trade, 
which he conducted nine years in his home town, removing thence 
to Augusta, where he worked two years at his trade. He then served 
three years as an apjn-entice to Malcolm & Dyer, ])himbers, after 
which for five years he filled the position of custodian of the Augusta 
city hall. In 1905 he innnigrated to California, and choosing Visalia 
as his permanent location, accepted a position as sheet metal worker 
for the Cross Hardware Co. Upon the erection of the factory 
of the Pacific Sugar Co., Mr. Clark was engaged by said company 



310 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

to do the sheet metal work, accomplishing the work most satisfac- 
torily. In 1907 he joined Frank A. Newman and C. B. Porter in 
establishing- a general plumbing business. Two years later Mr. 
Porter withdrew from the firm, leaving Mr. Clark and Mr. Newman 
sole proprietors. 

In 1897 Mr. Clark was united in marriage with Miss Mary A. 
Beck, also a native of Maine. They have two charming children, 
Marjorie F. and Addison W. Mr. Clark is a valued member of the 
Knights of Pythias, Calantha Lodge, No. 52, and the Bethlehem Lodge, 
A. F. & A. M., No. 135, both of which he joined in Augusta, Maine. 

Frank A. Newman was born in Cooper county. Mo., January 
31, 1869. His father, Jesse Newman, died before his son reached 
manhood, and in the fall of 1884 the mother, formerly Elizabeth 
Hill, brought her little family to California. Frank A. Newman 
ranched several years and also served as foreman of the Harrell 
stock and grain ranch. Later he conducted on his own account a 
three hundred and twenty-acre wheat farm in the Stone Corral 
district, Tulare county, and he then became an apprentice to the 
Cross Hardware Co., and iipon completion of this service engaged 
in the plumbing business with Isaac Clark. The partners started 
their venture in a small way, but their trade grew steadily and they 
now employ twelve able assistants. 

Following is a list of the buildings which this company have 
equipped with plumbing and heating fixtures : The Exeter high school 
building, the Lemoore high school building, the new hotel at Lemoore 
and the new high school building at Delano. They have also recently 
installed the heating apparatus in the Kingsbury grammar school; 
the sheet metal and heating work in the Reedley grammar school ; 
all the sheet metal woi'k on the First National Bank building at 
Porterville; also on the three-story Blue building on Main street, 
Visalia. They have replaced the old plumbing for new throughout 
the county jail, the three-story Harrell building, and put in all the 
new plumbing in the Merriman building and the Tipton and Lindsay 
grammar school. For years Mr. Clark has made a thorough study 
of the matter of proper heating for public as well as private build- 
ings and uses the gravity and mechanical systems in order to produce 
complete circulation, replenishing the air in a room from six to ten 
times during one hour. He has obtained the most satisfactory results 
both regarding even temperature and sanitation. Among the resi- 
dences thus equipped by him may be mentioned those of A. Lewis, 
H. F. Miller, R. E. Hyde and the M. E. Church of Visalia. The 
company has also installed plumbing and heating systems in the 
residences of R. F. Cross, Capt. H. White, Ralph Goldstein, Meyer 
E. Eiseman, two houses for J. F. Carter, Mrs. Oaks' home and 





^^^^^-^'-'^--<^yrt-J^t-^^^^ 




i7. 




OL^C^ ^^/A <:='C.-n^ , 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 313 

uiimeroiis other private resideuces in Visalia aud throughout Tulare 
county. 

Both Mr. CMark and Mr. Newman by their rigidly fair and 
honest dealings have won the trust aud favor of their many patrons. 
In every movement pertaining to the development of the locality 
they are always prompt to tender their practical assistance. 



WILLIAM T. VAUGHAN 

Among the prominent men of Tulare and Kings counties men- 
tion is made of the efficient supervisor of the third district, W. T. 
Yaughan, who was born at Visalia, Tulare county, June 21, 1865. 
In September of the same year he was taken by his parents to San 
Luis Obispo county, where he attended school and lived until 1877, 
when the family moved to Pima county, Ariz., and that territory re- 
mained his home until 1900. After his arrival in Arizona the young- 
lad begun work on cattle ranches. He had but little opportunity 
to attend school and until he was nineteen years of age his educa- 
tion was obtained by contact with the primitive conditions to be 
found on the frontier. He grew up on a cattle range and was con- 
nected with the stock interests of that part of the country until his 
removal back to California in 1900. At the age when most boys 
are in school he was superintending a large ranch and becoming 
an expert in the handling of stock, enduring privations, but dcvelov)- 
ing a strong and sturdy constitution and laying the foundation for 
his future success. When he was about fourteen he was conducting 
a meat market in Ramsey's canyon and going to the school at that 
place. He would sit so he could watch the door of his shop and 
when a customer would come he would have to leave the school- 
room and attend to his wants and then return to his books. He 
was also a member of the Territorial militia aud was compelled 
to keep his gun within reach at all times should a call come to 
defend the settlers against the Indians. After he was eighteen he 
attended the University of Southern California at Los Angeles for 
a time and says he got more education during that short time than 
in all his former years. 

His days for book-learning over, he returned to Arizona and as 
he succeeded he built up a cattle business of his own and carried it 
on very successfully until 1900, when, having sold his six thousand 
cattle and closed out his other interests in the territory, he returned 
to California and, with his father and brother, bought three hundred 
acres of land one mile north of Hanford, upon which were erected 
I)uildings suitable for their needs and began the development of the 



314 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

land. He now has one liimdred and fifty-five acres in fruit and the 
remainder in alfalfa. In 1911 he sold eighty acres at a good profit. 
He is the owner of eighty acres a mile south of Hanford. which he 
put into alfalfa and leases to others, also has ten acres west of the 
city, which is in fruit and which he bought in 1901. . 

The father of W. T. Vaughan, James Upton' Vaughan, was born 
September 9, 184-1, in Mississip]ii, went to Texas and in 1852 crossed 
the plains to California. He passed away in Kings county Novem- 
ber 7, 1911. His widow makes her home with her children. A 
lirother, Andrew Henry "^'aughau, came to Kings county with "Wil- 
liam T., and they had interests together for several years. On 
September 25, 1892, Mr. Vaughan was united in marriage with Miss 
Elenora Sori'ells, a native of Phoenix, Ariz., born July 1.3, 1874, 
daughter of A. B. and Melvina (Parker) Sorrells, who were natives 
of Arkansas and California respectively. Mrs. Vaughan received her 
schooling in Arizona and was there married to Mr. Vaughan. They 
have four children. Merle E., Pearl E., William J., and Bertha L., 
all members of their parents' household; the two eldest are attend- 
ing the Hanford high school. 

Mr. Vaughan has invested in residence property in San Diego, 
Cal., is a stockholder in the First National Bank of Hanford. owns 
shares in the Lacy Oil company, operating in the Devil's Den 
country, and in the Castle Oil company of the Coalinga field ; is a 
member of the Hanford lodge of Elks, has passed all the chairs in 
the local lodge of the I. O. 0. P., and for one year served as District 
Deputy Grand Master; he also belongs to the K. of P. and with 
Mrs. Vaughan belongs to the Daughters of the Eebekahs. Always 
interested in politics he has taken an active part in local and state 
affairs. In the fall of 1910 he was elected to the board of super- 
visors, representing the third district of Kings county, and is serv- 
ing with fidelity those interests that placed him in office. He has 
had charge of the road building of his district in every detail and 
devotes his energies towards the faithful discharge of his duties. 
He represents Kings county in the matter of the erection of a counties 
building at the Panama-Pacific Exposition in 1915 at San Francisco. 
It is safe to say that no man has become so closely allied with the 
people in all things tending towards public betterment than has AV. 
T. Vaughan. 



JOHN N. HAYS 

The president of the Hays Cattle Co., John N. Hays, a prominent 
business man of Kings county, Cal., has had a career the history of 
which thus far is both interesting and instructive, and it should be 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 815 

an encouragement to yoiuig men who would sueoeed in spite of lack 
of capital and in the face of many obstacles. Mr. Hays was lioru in 
Missouri, Fe})ruary 3, 1854, and came to California in Sejitember, 
1872, when lie was in his nineteenth year. The first eigliteen months 
of his life here were spent in Mariposa county, where he was emiiloyed 
by some relatives who had come on before him. Late in 1873 or 
early in 1874 he came to Lake Tulare (then in Tulare but now in 
Kings county), where his people took uj) land on the border of the 
lake. For two years they farmed on rented land in the Dingley 
Addition, now the site of Lemoore, Mr. Overstreet, his stepfather, 
having been in charge, and there Mr. Hays remained until 1886, 
when he disposed of his interests at the lake and moved to Cholame 
valley, Monterey county, where he lived and labored ten years. At 
the expiration of that time he came back to Lemoore and went into 
the stock business and in 1894 he bought three hundred and twenty 
acres of land, a mile and a half west of Guernsey, which he devoted 
to grazing. He operated independently until 1911, increasing his 
business from year to year till he took rank with the big cattle men 
of central California. He then organized and incorporated the Hays 
Cattle Comi)any, of which he is president; Eoy D. Hays, vice-presi- 
dent; and R. W. Forbes, secretary. The company expects to dispose 
of about six hundred to eight hundred cattle annually, its last year's 
business having amounted to six hundred, and is renting forty 
thousand acres of pasture for its stock. 

Oil develoinnent in the Devil's Den country has interested Mr. 
Hays, who has investments there, and he owns also an interest in 
oil lands in the Cholame valley district. He has from time to time 
had to do with business of other kinds and his interest in the com- 
munity makes him a citizen of much public spirit. Fraternally, he 
affiliates with the Circle and with the Woodmen of the World. He 
married Miss Lillie Mills in 1882 and she passed away in 1891, leaving 
three daughters and a son. Floy is the wife of R. W. Forbes, of 
Lemoore. Roy D. is vice-president of the Hays Cattle Com]3any. 
Pauline married Clarence Esrey of Lemoore. Alice is Mrs. William 
McAdam and her husl)and is operating in the oil field. In 1907 Mr. 
Hays united his life with that of Mrs. Jeanette Bryan, who has 
borne him children whom they have named Richard Ujiton, Doi-otln- 
and Ann. 



JOSEPH D. BIDDLE 

The forceful character of the citizenshij) of J. D. Biddlc during 
the past (|uarter of a century has given him for all time a place 
in the annals of the state as well as of Hanford, which li;is Ikmmi his 



316 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

permanent home during this time and the scene of his activities to 
a large extent. A native of Tennessee, born in Bedford county, 
.April 30, 1852, he passed his boyhood, youth and young manhood 
in the vicinity of his birth and the home of liis parents, and at the 
age of twenty-seven, in 1879, made his first trip to tlie west. After 
a stay of two months he returned to the south, but in 1882 retraced 
his steps and this time remained six months. It was in 1887 that he 
made his third and last journey to California, his two prior trips 
of inspection thoroughly satisfying him that here as nowhere else 
were opportunities awaiting the young man of push and determination. 
Having disposed of his merchandise and milling business in Shelliy- 
ville, Teun., in 1887 he came that same year to California and located 
in Hanford, his first work here being as auctioneer of livestock. As 
an adjunct to this business he bought livestock and shee}), as well 
as wool, the latter being gathered from a large territory, extending 
from Mexico to the Oregon line. His shipments of this commodity 
are large, being made to all ]:iarts of this country, as well as to 
Canada. His first experience in the wool business was in his early 
days in the west, when he was a representative for the Thomas 
Dunnigan & Son Co., a well-known wool house of San Francisco. 
The live stock which Mr. Biddle handles he secures from all parts of 
the state, and he has had as high as twenty-five thousand shee]:) in 
his possession at one time. 

In financial circles throughout the San Joaquin valley few 
names are better known than that of Joseph D. Biddle, and to his 
splendid judgment and conservatism may be given much credit for 
the substantial character of the monetary institutions with which he 
has had to do. Among the latter may be mentioned the Sacramento 
Bank, German Savings & Loan Society of San Francisco, Savings 
Union Bank of San Francisco, Union Trust of San Francisco, and 
he has also made large loans of money through independent capitalists. 
He also represents several of the largest and best insurance com- 
panies of San Francisco, and is largely interested in the oil industry. 
His first venture in this field was the ])urchase of some of the best 
oil lands in the Coalinga district, and following this he organized 
several oil com])anies which are now organizations controlling great 
wealth, these and the banks through which the business is carried 
on representing a combined capital of over $150,000,000. Mr. Biddle 
made large expenditures in drilling on his oil fields, but owing to the 
low prices of oil at the time it was deemed advisable to suspend 
operations until it demanded a better price. The property is still 
owned by the various comjianies, in all of which Mr. Biddle is a 
director, as follows: Investment Oil Company and the Phoenix Oil 
Company. Other companies were also organized in the Bakersfield 
district, but these have since been disposed of. 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 317 

Not only was Mr. Biddle a pioneer and moving spirit in the 
industries above mentioned, l)ut he has been equally forceful along- 
agricultural aud horticultural lines. During his early years here 
he bought and platted the Bonanza vineyard, embracing a tract of 
three hundred acres. Later acquisitions were the Silvia ranch of one 
hundred acres, the Griswold apricot orchard of eighty acres (at that 
time the largest orchard of the kind in that section, but which has 
since been sub-divided into small holdings), the Haywood vineyard 
of eighty acres, the Redwood vineyard and orchard of one hundred 
and twenty acres, the Savings Bank vineyard and orchard, consisting 
of eighty acres south of llanford, which has since been sold, the 
Happy Home vineyard of twenty acres and the A. P. Dickenson 
ranch of eighty acres. For five years he also leased and operated 
the Banner vineyard of three hundred and twenty acres and for 
a number of years also leased Mrs. M. S. Templeton's vineyard of 
one hundred and sixty acres northeast of Hanford. In connection 
with his large fruit interests Mr. Biddle erected a grading plant 
on the Bonanza ranch, where he was prepared to dry, cure and 
bleach the fruits from his various ranches, all of which found a ready 
sale in eastern markets. Besides handling and shipping all of his 
own fruit, he also bought raisins and peaches all over this section, 
paying the local packers in the countrj- to pack his raisins and peaches 
under his own brand and ship them direct to the eastern markets. 
In order that none of the fruit should be wasted, he bought peaches 
and sacked them at the depots when the packing house was filled to 
its capacity. 

Mr. Biddle 's interests in another direction are apparent in a 
number of substantial structures in Hanford. One of his first 
ventures along this line was the rebuilding of the block formerly 
occupied by the city stables, the site now occupied by the Old Bank. 
He also owns the building occupied by the Hanford Mercantile 
Corporation. This organization is capitalized for $100,000 and Mr. 
Biddle is one of its largest stockholders and secretary, and a director 
also. He was also one of the prime movers in the organization of 
the Hotel Artesia, which was built by the corporation of which he 
was a member and subsequently sold to B. J. Turner. Through an 
exchange of property Mr. Biddle became the owner of the Axtell 
block at the corner of Seventh and Irwin streets, the name of which 
has since been changed to the Sharpless block. He also moved the 
postoffice from its old site and placed it on Irwin street; aud he 
moved both telegraph offices into the Hotel Artesia, their present 
locations. He at one time owned what is now the Vendome hotel, 
and he also bought and moved the first hotel erected in Hanford to 
the corner of Fifth and Douty streets, remodeling it and ultimately 
selling it to B. J. Turner. 



318 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Reference has elsewhere been made to Mr. Biddle's interest 
and activities in the stock business. It was no uncommon thing 
for him to have on hand from ten to twenty tliousand hogs on the 
McJunkin ranch, one and a half miles north of Hanford. It was 
during his earliest experiences in the business that he attemjited to 
fatten his hogs on grain that had been saved as salvage from a large 
fire in Stockton. He ]nirchased the damaged grain to the extent of 
one hundred thousand sacks, or one hundred cars, and shipi)ed it to 
Hanford. It required all of the vehicles available to haul the grain 
to the Bonanza vineyard, where it was spread over eight acres of 
ground to dry in the sun. It was then resacked and stacked in the 
dry yard, the whole presenting the appearance of hay stacks in a 
field. He then bought steam engines and large tanks in whicli to steam 
the wheat, after which he fed the grain thus treated to the seven or 
eight thousand hogs which he had on the ranch at the time. The 
experiment proved a failure, it being demonstrated that charred grain 
was injurious to hogs, as they sickened and died under the diet. The 
ex]ierience was a costly one. but it did not deter Mr. Biddle from 
making further investigations as to the most desirable methods of 
feeding. 

Owing to his wide experience and versatile knowledge it is not 
surprising that Mr. Biddle has been called upon from time to time 
to act in the capacity of administrator and transact other business 
of a similar nature. On numerous occasions when a difference of 
opinion arose as to the proper settlement of legal matters he has 
been called into consultation with attorneys, not only in Hanford, 
but also in Fresno, Visalia, Sacramento and even to San Francisco. 
At one time he was called to Portland, Ore., to settle a law suit 
involving $30,000, and he was also called to Nevada in the adjustment 
of a suit with Carmen & Richey involving $1,000,000, and this also 
was equably adjusted. At the present time Mr. Biddle is interested 
in the live stock, wool, oil, insurance, real estate and merchandise 
business, being in close touch with all of the details of eacli, and 
he is also actively interested in all of the organizations of his home 
city which have for their objects the uplifting of the citizens and the 
general welfare of town and county. He is a valued member of the 
Chamber of Commerce and he was also a member of the committee 
appointed to attend the convention held in Los Angeles for the 
purpose of discussing matters relative to the Panama canal. He 
has also been an active member of a connnittee appointed by the 
supervisors of Kings county for the purpose of preparing a ]ietition 
for bringing the main highway through Hanford, the county seat, 
through Visalia to Bakersfield. He has also been appointed a memljer 
of the highwav commission to meet in Sacramento in January. 1913, 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 319 

wheu the above matter will oome before the commission for discus- 
sion and settlement. 

In the early days when Hanford did not boast a railroad Mr. 
Biddle started a donation to get the Santa Fe to run its road through 
Hanford and the valley. The completion of the road was celebrated 
in royal style, and in this too Mr. Biddle took the lead. In the 
disi)la>' was one wagon to which were attached twenty-four large 
white horses, followed 1)\' three large wagons loaded with one 
hundred bales of wool, another wagon showing the quality of sheep 
and hogs, and still another containing a large prune tree which 
Mr. Biddle dug from his orchard, full of growing prunes. Mr. 
Biddle had the honor of sliii)ping the tirst three carloads of wool 
from Hanford over the road, the cars bearing large banners on which 
was printed in large letters, "Hanford the first city to patronize the 
Santa Fe railroad out of the Valley." 

On May 1, 1878, Mr. Biddle was united in marriage with Miss 
Sallie M. Landis, a native of Tennessee. The success that has 
rewarded Mr. Biddle 's efforts is commensurate with his industry 
and persevei'ance. It is rare indeed that one is privileged to meet 
a man of such versatility, resolute character and determined will as 
Mr. Biddle possesses, and Hanford is proud to claim his citizenship. 



McADAM RANCHES 

In 1908 Robert McAdam, who is now a resident of Pasadena, Cal., 
bought sixteen hundred acres of land, formerly known as the Paige 
and Monteagle orchards, live miles west of Tulare. Of this tract 
he sold all but about nine hundred acres, and this he divided among 
members of his family, Annie McAdam receiving eighty-five acres, 
Robert, Jr., and Fred McAdam two hundred and five acres, William 
J. two hundred and twenty acres, Mrs. Isabelle McAlpine eighty 
acres, Frank S. McAdam one hundred and eighty acres, and Robert 
McAdam, Sr., one hundred and sixty acres. 

These ranches, all in one body, are irrigated with water developed 
on them, there being six wells with an aggregate flow of five hundred 
inches, besides numerous other wells for watering stock. The water 
developed by the nine large wells, which is used solel.v for irrigation, 
is pumped by five motors and three gasoline engines; two of the 
wells are artesian. The entire combination of ranches is supplied 
with cement irrigation jiipe and galvanized iron surface pipe. There 
is six miles of the cement ])ipe and the iron pipe is used instead of 
ditches. This notable irrigation system will be connected and com- 
pleted before the end of 191,'!. 



320 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

The McAdams have put on the place all the improvements that 
now add to its utility and attractiveness, including a new $3500 con- 
crete residence on the Frank S. McAdam ranch, a new barn, occupying 
ground space of 40x45 feet, and a new tank and dairy house com- 
bined, with a power separator in the dairy house. On the William 
J. McAdam place there are two new 56x60 foot barns. Another 
improvement is eight miles of wire hog-tight fence between the 
different ranches. The farms of Mrs. McAlpine, Robert McAdam, 
Jr., and Fred McAdam are rented on a cash basis and that of Robert 
McAdam, Sr., is operated by a tenant on shares, and the combined 
annual cash rentals of the above ranches aggregate $11,800, and all 
has been developed in the last five years. 



H. J. LIGHT 

The prominent citizen of Lemoore whose name is above is widely 
known as a promoter of the oil industry. Judge Light, as he is 
familiarly called by his many friends, was born in Virginia, March 
19, 1851, was reared in the western part of Floyd coimty and fin- 
ished his education at the Salem Academy in Roanoke county. Then 
he took up school teaching as a profession and was so employed 
many years. In 1866 he went to Kansas, and after teaching there 
a short time took up his residence in Springfield, Mo., where he 
taught until 1874. Then he came to California, and locating at 
Visalia pursued his vocation there and northeast of the city for 
five years. During the succeeding four years he was teaching again 
in Missouri, but he came back to California and settled at Lemoore, 
renting land on the lake of Elias Jacobs and establishing himself 
as a farmer. In 1886 he homesteaded one hundred and sixty acres 
of land, pre-empted a hundred and sixty acres and took up a timber 
claim of one hundred and sixty acres in the same section. Later he 
bought the remainder of the section under the isolated land act. He 
ran a stock ranch until in 1909, when he leased his land to tenants 
and moved to Lemoore, where he has since lived. He has bought 
property here and expects to pass his declining years in the town. 

In the spring of 1910 Mr. Light was elected a member of the 
city council of Lemoore and in November of that year to the office 
of justice of the peace. For nine years he served as justice of the 
peace of West End judicial township and resignaed the office the 
better to attend to his private interests. He has been a trustee of 
the Union high school since the organization of the district. 

In 1907 Mr. Light married Ella (Hunt) Logan. He has six 
children by a former marriage : Tespan, of Kings county ; Swinton ; 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 323 

Robert Denii}-, of Santa Barbara county; Theodore, of C'oaliuga; 
William Kings, of San Luis Obispo, and Mrs. W. P. Smith, of 
Lemoore. William Kings Light has the distinction of being one 
of the first four children born in Kings county, he having been 
born on the morning after the election for the petition of Tulare 
county and the formation of Kings county. Mr. Light has been 
an active member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows since 
he was twenty-two years old. In his ]iolitical afiiliations he is Repub- 
lican and as such he has been influential in local affairs. A man of 
much public spirit he has done much toward the development and 
improvement of the city and of the country round about. His in- 
vestments in real estate at Lemoore include ten acres and several city 
lots and on one of the latter he erected his office building. While he 
lived on his ranch he gave ]:)articular attention to the breeding of 
cattle and horses. In 1890 he and Orlando Barton, of Visalia, located 
land in Lost Hills. They were the first there and he was one of the 
original incorporators of the Lost Hills Mining company, which was 
sold in 1911. Its property is located in what is now a great oil field. 
Mr. Light was and is interested in oil lands in Devil's Den and 
Kettleman's Hills and in the West End Oil company, the property of 
which he located in August, 1908. He was one of the incorporators 
of the Lake Oil company, which with the West End Oil company is 
leased to the Medallion company. With the Devil's Den Consolidated 
he was interested also, and he heljied to organize and owns stock in 
the Lauretta Oil company and is identified with the Dudley Oil com- 
pany, a San Francisco concern operating in the Devil's Den field. 



WILLIAM WASHINGTON BLOYD 

The life of the late William Washington Bloyd extended from 
July 18, 18.35, when he was born in Illinois, until in November, 1908, 
when he died at his home in Ilanford, Kings county, Cal. He grew 
to manhood on the farm in Hancock county. 111., and was married 
April 14, 18.55, to Miss Elizabeth Cowan, who was liorn in Halifax, 
Nova Scotia, April 18, 18.35, and had come to Illinois. After his 
marriage he lived four years in his native state, then sold out his 
interests there and moved to Appanoose county, Iowa, where he 
made his home until 1861, when he came with a train of eight wagons 
drawn by oxen over the southern overland route to California. For 
two years he lived at Red Bluff, Tehama county, and afterwards 
until 1874 in San Joaquin county, where he bought a ranch. Then 
because he could not do well in so dry a country he sold out and came 
to what is now Kings county, settling on railroad land in the GrnTige- 



;124 TULAKE AND KING8 COUNTIES 

ville seetion four miles west of Ilanford, homesteading at the same 
time one hiuidred and sixty acres nearby. It was not until after the 
rioting at Mussel Slough that he finally paid out on his railroad land. 
He naturally sided with tlie settlers, and was at Hanford at the 
time of the historic tight. Mrs. Bloyd, hearing of it, hurried to the 
scene of action, but did not arrive until the conflict was over and one 
man lay dead and two wounded on the ground ; Mr. Blo>d arrived 
a few minutes afterward. It was not very cheerfully that the settlers 
later gave up so much good money for their land, but the courts 
compelled them to do it and they made the best of the situation. 
After a time Mr. Bloyd sold out here and lived for a year in Oregon. 
Eeturning then, he bought back his old ranch and lived on it until 
1907, when he sold it to move to Hanford, where he had bought a 
residence at 115 West Elm street. As an investment he owned 
several other houses in the city. 

Eight children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Bloyd, viz: Rosalie 
Adeline, deceased; Winfield Scott, mentioned elsewhere in this work; 
Charles S., who lives at Hanford ; Clara Ellen, who is the wife of 
K. L. Wilcox, of Los Angeles ; Ida Belle, who married Ed Parsons, of 
Hanford; Elizabeth Jane, deceased; Levi, who is also mentioned fully 
in this pultlieatiou; and Willie Wilford, who lives in Kings county. 
Of these children Adeline and Winfield were born in Illinois, the 
others being natives of California. 

The fraternal affiliations of Mr. Bloyd were with the Masons and 
the Ancient Order of United Workmen and his religious convictions 
drew him to the Christian church. His early experiences in California 
included some in the mines in Placer county. He superintended the 
construction of the People's Ditch in Kings county. When he came 
to that county it was an open i>lain on which wild horses and cattle 
roamed at will and in all of the tlevelopment down to a comparatively 
recent time he manfully did his part, for he was public spirited to 
a degree that made him a most useful citizen. 



ROBERT W. MILLER 

In Jasper county. 111., Robert W. Miller was born September 5, 
1847. Orphaned when very young, he grew up in Crawford county, 
that state, under the care of a guardian who allowed him ]iractically 
no educational advantages. When he was nineteen years old he 
became a student in a public school in Sangamon county, 111., from 
which he was graduated when twenty-one and given a teacher's cer- 
tificate. While teaching school during the next two years, he 
prepared himself by special courses of study to enter the University 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 325 

of Illinois, and in 1871 he took the law course of that institution; 
in 1874 he was admitted to the hnv to practice as a lawyer in the 
Su])renie Court of Illinois. He soon afterward went to Minnesota, 
where he taught school two years, also procuring admission to 
practice in the Supreme Court of that state, and he was in profes- 
sional woi-k there until the fall of 1879, when he located in Humboldt 
county, Cal. For two years thereafter he practiced at Eureka and 
then gave up the law temporarily in favor of mining, but in two 
years he was glad to return to his law office, and on June 17, 1885. 
he became a member of the l)ar, admitted to practice in the Supreme 
Court of California. After laboring professionally for a short time 
at Eureka and Del Norte, he located at Santa Rosa, Sonoma county, 
and was in legal practice there until 1904, when he came to Hanford, 
where he at once opened offices and has since been professionally 
successful. Shortly after his arrival in Kings county he was appointed 
Court Commissioner, and in 1906 he was a candidate on the Repub- 
lican ticket for the office of judge of the Superior Court but was 
defeated by a very small majority. After the Santa Cruz Republican 
State convention in 1906, he became most active in furthering 
progressive government principles to which he had been a convert 
for many years. In 1907 he was appointed state organizer for Kings 
county and he gave his best eiTorts to the organization of the Lincoln- 
Roosevelt League of California which culminated in the election of 
Hiram Johnson for Governor and later in the birth of the Progressive 
party in 1912. Fraternally he affiliates with the Masonic order. 
His social pojmlarit.v is wide, and his fellow citizens admire him as a 
man of ability and of honesty who has the interests of the community 
at heart and does in a public-spirited way all that he is able to do 
for their promotion. 

In 1880 Mr. Miller married Miss Mattie Morrison, a native of 
Wisconsin, who has borne him a daughter and four sons. Maud PI 
is the wife of Dr. Edward Dunbar of Fallon, Nev. R. Justin is a 
student in the University of Montana, a graduate of Stanford Uni- 
versity of the class of 1911, and was recently admitted to practice 
law in the Montana Supreme Court. J. Arthur is studying engineer- 
ing at Stanford University. He is a graduate of the Palo Alto high 
school, where his brothers, W. Leslie and Lowell Miller, are now 
students. 



FRANK S. McADAM 

The farm of Frank S. McAdam, one of the McAdan) ranches, 
consists of one hundred and eiglity acres, ninety acres of which is 
rented for dairy purposes and seventy-five acres of the ninety is 



326 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

under alfalfa. The dairyman renter milks forty cows and raises some 
hogs. Thirty acres of the remainder of the place is devoted to 
alfalfa, and the last acre of it will be given to that crop as soon as 
possible. At this time Mr. McAdam milks eight cows and farms 
forty acres to grain. 

Mr. McAdani was born June 3, 1885, in Pembina county, Dakota 
Territory. In 1907 he married Miss Schukenecht, of Hobart, Ind., 
and their son Lawrence McAdam was born October 25, 1908. 

Mr. McAdam 's management of his portion of the big McAdani 
ranch has been evidence of his capability for the liandliug of big 
business. A man of enterprise and of public spirit who has the 
welfare of the community at heart, he is one of the most helpful 
citizens of his ])art of the county. He is at present interested with 
his brother William J. in the Castle Dome silver and lead mines of 
their father, Robert McAdam. The mines are located in Yuma county, 
Arizona. 



SAMUEL EDWARD BIDDLE 

The death of Hanford's most prominent banker, who had l)een 
identified with its financial, commercial and political circles for many 
years, proved a great shock to the people here and was deeply felt 
throughout the entire county, whose welfare had been of so much 
importance to him. Samuel Edward Biddle had more to do with 
things pertaining to the business life here and in this county than 
any other citizen of the city. His death, which occurred May 7, 1908, 
at the St. Helena Sanitarium at Hanford, removed from their midst 
one of the people's best friends. 

Mr. Biddle was a native of Normandie, Bedford county, Tenn., 
born there September 15, 1845, the son of J. V. and Eliza Biddle. He 
received his educational training in the schools there and in 1874 came 
to California to ever afterward make it his home. When but fifteen 
years of age he had enlisted in the Confederate army, seeing active 
service, but he was finally incapacitated by a wound and received his 
discharge, returning to Tennessee. Here in his native town he was 
married on January 6, 1870, to Miss Achsah A. McQuiddy, daughter 
of Major T. J. McQuiddy, who is a well known pioneer of Tulare 
county, and is still living in Hanford. Major McQuiddy made his 
first trip to California in the early '70s and selected lands for himself 
and other members of the party of emigrants who came overland with 
him in 1874 and settled at Tulare county. Tliis said party consisted 
of eighteen people, including Samuel E. Biddle and his family, M. P. 
Troxler and family and Major Cartner and wife. Major McQuiddy 
also bringing his family. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 329 

After his marriage and before coming to California, Mr. Biddle 
took his bride to live in Gibson county, Tenn., where they stayed for 
some time, later liein,i>' at Bi'azil, Trenton and Huml)oldt. lie had learned 
the milling business and ran a flouring mill at Trenton, later at Hum- 
boldt, and this experience i)roved most helpful to him upon coming to 
the new country. When he came to California his family consisted of 
his wife and two children, a son and daughter, and they settled upon 
a railroad quarter-section of land a mile and a half north and three 
miles east of the present site of Hanford, which Mrs. Biddle 's father. 
Major McQuiddy, had selected for them. They here built a board and 
batten house, Mr. Biddle immediately seeing the necessity for many 
improvements which he started to make. Irrigation ditches were 
erected and the land was prepared for cultivation, and in the year 
1876 he harvested his first crop, which was of wheat. 

In the meantime Mr. Biddle found that all this had taken nuich of 
his resources, and he accordingly went to work for I. H. Ham, the 
pioneer miller of Tulare county, taking charge of the mill at Tulare, 
and as the agriculturists in the surrounding country were meeting 
with good success in the cultivation of grain, he found much work and 
demand for his milling. At this time his means were practically ex- 
hausted, he having only $3.75 in Ms pocket. Accepting the first job 
that offered, he began as a roustabout at the Tulare mill. Leaving his 
family at home, he walked six miles and worked all day on Cross 
Creek bridge, and then proceeded to Tulare, where he took his position 
as roustabout. Mr. Ham soon recognized his ability, for in less than 
a week he was made miller, and from this time a very close intimacy 
grew up between Mr. Ham and himself. It was in 1877 that he, in 
partnership with Mr. Ham, built the Lemoore mill, of which he took 
charge and built up a prosperous business, in 1880 selling it at a hand- 
some [irofit. He then came to Hanford and built a grain warehouse 
which he operated, himself. This warehouse was so much in demand 
that it became filled to its capacity, and finally, under the stress of too 
heavy a weight of grain, it collajDsed and Mr. Biddle was greatly in- 
convenienced financially by the disaster. He turned to R. E. Hyde, 
the lianker of Visalia, for assistance, and the latter proved his true 
friendship for Mr. Biddle when he came forward and supplied the 
means to rebuild the warehouse, which was immediately done. From 
this time on is chronicled for Mr. Biddle one success after another. 
In 1883 he built a large brick building on the corner of Sixth and 
Irwin streets in Hanford, where in association with his brother he 
conducted a profitable farm implement business until 1887, at which 
time his banking interests became his most vital business. 

On Ai)ril 11, 1887, was launched the Bank of Hanford, iu whose 
incorporation Mr. Biddle was most actively interested. It was the first 
bank established in Hanford and he was installed as its cashier and 



330 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

manager, serving in this capacity for a long period, and wlieu this 
was succeeded by the First National Bank of Hanford, Mr. Biddle 
severed his connection therewith and organized in November, 1901, 
what is now the Old Bank, and of this establishment he was president 
and manager up to the time of his death, being also a heavy stock- 
holder. His wide reputation for strict integrity of character and hon- 
esty in all his dealings made him sought out by many for advice and 
the handling of their capital, and he had always proved himself to be 
a clever and shrewd business man in making investments and in tlie 
execution of his duties in general. 

Along with these heavy business cares, Mr. Biddle had found time 
to give himself to public ser\dce, having served as supervisor for this 
part of Tulare county for one term, and at the time the fight was made 
for the independence of Kings county he was one of the earnest 
workers, was one of the commissioners, and afterward served as a 
member of the first board of supervisors of Kings county. Asso- 
ciated with him in the organization of the new county government 
were J. H. Malone, W. H. Newport, William Ogden, E. E. Bush and 
G. X. AYendling. Later he was president of the Hanford Chamber of 
Commerce and Board of Trade, and in all these offices he had ever 
held the advance and development of his town and county foremost in 
mind. His exceptional activity as a public-spirited citizen and a 
charitable and well-wishing friend to all with whom he came in contact 
caused his death to cast a shadow over the entire public of this city 
and county. 

Samuel E. Biddle and his wife were the parents of three sous and 
four daughter, viz. : Tolbert Vance, who resides in Coalinga, Cal. ; 
Eliza Jane, wife of I. C. Taylor, of Berkeley; Samuel Edward, Jr., 
cashier and manager of the Citizens' Bank of Alameda; Beta H., wife 
of Robert Crawford, of Hanford; Wallace J., a plasterer, with resi- 
dence at Oakland ; Kate J., wife of Dallas H. Gray, of Armona, Kings 
county; and Annie Dale, Mrs. "William S. Andrews, of Berkeley. 



HAELAND E. WRIGHT 

One of the organizers and present casliier and manager of the 
Hanford National Bank, conspicuous in various pul)lic enterprises, 
Harland E. Wright, of Hanford, Cal., is a leader among the younger 
business men of Kings county. Now an out-and-out Westerner, he 
is by birth a Yankee, having first seen the light of day in Wiscasset, 
Lincoln county. Me., May 22, 1863. a sou of Sullivan Wright and 
Maria L. (Bailey) Wright, both of whom were natives of the Pine 
Tree state and members of old New England families. The father 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 331 

was a jeweler and was working at liis trade when the Civil war 
began. Inspired by the patriotic blood of Revolutionary ancestors, 
he tried to enlist as a soldier in the federal army, but was disquali- 
fied by physical disability. He passed away at the comparatively 
early age of fifty-five years, his widow now living in Maine. 

When his father died Harland E. Wright was nine years old. 
He was brought up in the parental home and educated so far as 
was possible in the local public schools. He stepped out into the 
world and began to take care of himself when he was thirteen years 
old, becoming a telegrapher, in which capacity he was employed by 
the W^esteru Union Telegraph Company in Boston and in different 
cities of Maine until the fall of 1882, a year known in telegraphic 
historj" as "the year of the great strike." Then he came to Cali- 
fornia, and vmtil the fall of 1892 was bookkeeper for George P. 
McNear, banker and grain dealer at Petaluma. Taking up his resi- 
dence in Hanford at that time, he became assistant cashier of the 
Farmers and Merchants bank, and eighteen months later he was 
made cashier, which position he retained until March, 1903. He 
had become the largest stockholder in the bank, but he now sold 
his interest in it and in May organized the Hanford National Bank, 
an historical sketch of which is given in these pages. 

Besides his interest in the bank Mr. Wright owns, with S.~E. 
Railsback, one thousand acres of land thirteen miles south of Han- 
ford, which is rented for dairy purposes. He is interested in or- 
chards witli Mr. Eailsback and Charles King, and they own a fine 
fruit farm north of Grangeville, where they have ninety acres de- 
voted to prunes, lie was one of the organizers of the Lake Land 
Canal Company and one of the builders of its improvements. 

November 15, 1888, Mr. Wright married Etta Ranard, who was 
l)()rn in Sonoma county, Cal., and they have a daughter, Fae, who is 
a student in the high school. Politically he is a Republican, influen- 
tial in the work of his party, but has no personal amlntion for an 
official career. Fraternally he affiliates with the Indejiendent Order 
of Odd Fellows and the Woodmen of the World. He has won his 
success l)y liis own unaided efforts, through the forcefulness of a 
character the distinguishing characteristics of which are integrity, 
earnestness, independence and self-reliance. 



JOHN F. JORDAN 



The proniiiu'ut citizen of Tuhire county whose name is al)ove 
and whose residence is at No. 108 West Center street, Visalia, is a 
son of Frank and Alabama (McMicken) Jordan, natives respectively 



332 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

of Illinois and Alabama, and he was born in eastern Texas December 
10, 1850. His father had settled there early and had been for a 
time manager of a plantation near Shreveport, La. In 1854 he 
came to California as a captain of a train which included seventy- 
four families, whom he brought through safely, overcoming many 
difficulties by the way. Locating within the present borders of San 
Benito county, he became a stock-dealer and hotel keeper, and in 
1858 he made his headquarters in Tulare county, where he brought 
his family in 1860. He prospered as a stockman, traveling extensively 
in the prosecution of his business, and died at Visalia in 1878,' in his 
sixtieth year, his wife having passed away while the family was in 
San Benito county. He won the credit to which every self-made 
man is entitled of having begun with almost nothing and achieved 
good financial success. He was a citizen of much public spirit, 
influential in the councils of the Democratic party. 

Of tlie four sous and three daughters of Frank and Alabama 
(McMicken) Jordan, John F. Jordan was the fifth in order of birth 
and he was four years old when he accompanied his parents on their 
memorable overland journey to California. After having completed 
his studies in the Visalia public schools, he became a student at 
Heald's Business College, San Francisco, from which institution he 
was duly graduated in February, 1875. Soon after his return to Visalia, 
in that year, lie was appointed deputy postmaster of that city, and 
in 1876 was appointed deputy sheriff. He was elected in 1879 county 
auditor of Tulare county, in which office he served with great credit 
for five years. Later, in 1884, he engaged in the abstract business, 
in 1892 incorporating the Visalia Abstract Company, in which he 
is now a director, being formerly its secretary and general manager. 
The knowledge he has acquired of land titles in Tulare county is the 
result of years of study and experience and it makes his advice along 
these lines of the greatest practical value. At the same time it 
should be noticed that his work as secretary and manager of this 
enterprise is no indication of the extent of his activities. In June, 
1912, he became president of the Citizens' Bank of Visalia, at which 
time he retired from the management of the abstract business. He 
assisted in organizing the Kaweah Lemon Company (Inc) of which 
he is secretary and which owns three hundred and seventy acres 
in the foothills east of Visalia. He is a director in the Encina Fruit 
Company and has had much to do with the development of its lands, 
which include four hundred and forty acres, two miles north of 
Visalia. In the organization of the Visalia Fruit & Land Company 
he was prominently active and he is secretary of the Lemon Cove 
Ditch Company. 

The lady who became the wife of Mr. Jordan was Alice L. Neill, 
a native daughter of California, and they have three children : Ethel 





j» /^, ^>4^.^^^X^ 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 335 

v., wife of William B. Rowland; Ray F., and Neill J. Mr. Jordan 
affiliates fraternally with Lodge No. 128, F. & A. M., of Visalia; 
Chapter No. 44, R. A. M. ; Conniiandery No. 26. K. T., of which he 
is recorder; Scottish Rite No. 9, of which he is treasurer; and Islam 
Temple, Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, of San Francisco. He has 
been a local leader of the Democracy, was a delegate to the state 
convention of his jiarty in 1!H)4 and at one time served on the 
county central committee. He also served on the city council of 
Visalia for eight years. It goes without saying that in every 
emergencj' his fellow citizens have found his public spirit equal to 
any demand upon it. 



DR. BENJAMIN HAMLIN 

A factor and a landmark in the history of Kings county is Dr. 
Benjamin Hamlin, of Lemoore, who was born Janiuiry 20, 1824, and 
came to the present site of Lemoore in 1874, when he was about 
fifty years old. But at that time there was no town there ; on 
the ground Lemoore now occupies were a few scattered houses of 
primitive construction and a few settlers had come to the country 
round about. The doctor has witnessed the transformation of the 
county from wild land to a vast wheat-field and has watched the 
gradual supplanting of grain by fruit and vine. There are few peo- 
ple who have ever lived at Lemoore with whom he was not at one 
time or another personally acquainted, and many who have known 
him have had just reason to recognize in him the proverbial friend 
in need who is a friend indeed. 

When he was seven years old the future physician, dentist and 
druggist was taken by his parents to Lorain county, Ohio, where he 
grew to manhood. After leaving the public schools, he entered upon 
his professional studies under the preceptorship of Dr. Hubbard, 
teaching school in the meantime to pro\'ide for cui-rent expenses. In 
1847 he received his degree of M.D. at Angola, the county seat of 
Steuben county, Ind., where he practiced medicine during the decade 
that immediately followed. The next ten years he spent in ])ractice 
in St. Joseph county, Mich., and while practicing here he volunteered 
his services in the Civil wai-, and engaged as a hospital surgeon at 
Chattanooga during the time of Hood's raid, being in that service for 
seven months. From St. Joseph county he went to Florida, where he 
practiced dentistry five years. In 1872 he came to Santa Cruz, Cal., 
where he practiced medicine and dentistry until 1874, when he came 
to a little settlement on the site of Lemoore and opened a small drug 
store on the front of which he hung his professional sign. In 1875 he 



336 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

was appointed postmaster there and for ten years he combined the 
practice of medicine with tlie sale of drugs, then abandoned the former 
the better to give attention to the latter. For many years his drug store 
was the only establishment of its kind in the vicinity. He retired from 
the drug trade in 1899, since when he has done little business beyond 
giving attention to his fruit and vine ranch, north of Lemoore, which 
is now operated by a tenant. 

In 1847 Dr. Hamlin married Miss Margaret Fowls, who bore him 
three daughters and a son. Of these children only one of the daugh- 
ters is living, her home being in Santa Cruz. Mrs. Hamlin died in 
1886 and on the 16th of September, 1889, he married Maria L. Wells, 
a native of Buffalo, N. Y., but at that time living in San Francisco. 
Together they are spending their declining years in the companionship 
of many old friends, and in all the country roundal:)put Lemoore the 
doctor is held in loving regard as a pioneer. 

Mrs. Maria L. (Wells) Hamlin is a member of a patriotic family 
of soldiers, her brother, the late Brig.-Gen. A. B. Wells, having had 
a military record of over forty years' actual military service. Her 
father. Captain William U. Wells, was one of the pioneer miners at 
Virginia city, Nev., and he had four sons and one daughter in his 
family. All four of her brothers were enlisted soldiers in the war of 
the Rebellion, and the three surviving have given their entire lives 
to their country's military service. Of these, Capt. Charles H. now 
resides at St. Louis, Mo. ; he served through the entire Civil war, 
was at Libby and Andersonville prisons and was one of the brave 
men who dug his way out of Libby by means of an oyster-shell as 
their sole tool, and he has recently puV)lished a book which fully 
describes this incident. The second brother was the late Brig.-Gen. 
A. B. Wells. Another is Capt. William Wells, of Chicago, and the 
fourth brother, Aimer H. Wells, of Chicago, enlisted as a drummer 
boy when he was thirteen years old. 

Mrs. Hamlin has had the misfortune of losing her eyesight, but 
notwithstanding her life has been one of i)hilanthropy and kindness, 
and hundreds of needy and unfortunate people at San Francisco as 
well as Lemoore will ever bless her for her gentle and generous aid. 



P. A. McLEAN 

Of Scotch highland stock and born in Canada, P. A. McLean, of 
Tulare has demonstrated the potency of the influences that were 
back of him in the production of good American citizenship. He has 
also shown what a man of the right kind may hope to accomplish 
in California, if he makes it his business to succeed. It was at 



TULARP] AND KINGS COUNTIES 337 

Milton, across our nortliern liorder, that he tirst saw the light of 
day, November 22, 1842. His parents were natives of Scotland, and 
his mother was of the clan of the Camerons. She was a descendant 
of Lord John Cameron, and her brother, ('apt. John Cameron, came to 
California as early as 1832, later saw service in the West under 
Fremont, and eventually was killed in the battle of Monterey, in 
our war with Mexico. So passed an old Indian tighter whose history 
is a ]>art of the history of California. 

P. A. McLean has had many interesting and not a few thrilling- 
experiences. Seven years he sailed on the oceans, visiting about 
every important port in the world. Off the coast of Africa he was 
shipwrecked and for four days and nights was afloat on a spar. 
He was a comrade of "Buffalo Bill" Cody, shooting buffaloes with 
him on the plains and fighting Indians shoulder to shoulder with 
that picturesque American hero. It all happened in the period in 
which the LTnion Pacific railroad was being constructed across the 
continent. Several times he was wounded, and to his grave he will 
carry a bullet in Jiis body. Through his participation in Indian 
wars, and otherwise, he became acquainted with most of the famous 
chiefs of his time. Many years in the saddle, he participated in 
some of the famous rides that add spice to western history. It is 
of record that he made the trip from Dayton to Lewiston, sixty 
miles, in six hours, and rode from Spokane to Walla Walla, one 
hundred and fifty miles, in eighteen hours. He helped to locate 
government posts in Washington, and was the first white man to 
pilot a raft down Lake Chelan. He tells how plentiful deer and 
bear were along the lake. At Cheney, Wash., he built the first 
bank and the first gristmill, and later had a blacksmith slio]i, and 
the earliest gristmill at Spokane was erected by him. 

In his native town, Mr. McLean learned the trades of blacksmith 
and carriage maker, though his apprenticeship was finished at St. 
Johnsbury, Vt. After a time he found employmemnt on the Vermont 
Central railroad, and in 18(i6 he went to Chicago, where, a few years 
later, he built the first cabin after the Great Fire on the site of the 
old ])ostoffice on Dearborn street. But meantime he was busy else- 
where, for in 1869 he rode into Los Angeles, Cal., and saw an old 
and not very promising cluster of adobe houses, relics of a former 
civilization, and that was about all. His tri]) on horseback from 
there took him to Idaho and Washingtcni. It was on the 7th of 
November, 1876, that he made his first apjiearance in Tulare county, 
riding astride a nnistang. lie has lived there most of the time since, 
always identified with the county's growth and develoi)meiit. For 
a long time he made his honu> in \'isalia, where he had a blacksmith 
shop, but did a good deal of carpentering. He it was who framed 
the first joist that went into the construction of Ihc old coui'thouse. 



338 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

and iuto that same historic strneture he put the doors and huilt 
the bench for the judge. For six years he blacksmithed in Exeter, 
and from there he moved back to Visalia. He later rented a shop 
in Cochrane. He drifted to Visalia and was in the liquor business 
there four years, and in 1907 he ran a hotel in Cochrane, and came 
back to Tulare, August, 1909, where he now runs a shop. It was 
in the year 1888 that he bought the old Lyle ranch, two miles east 
of Visalia. He is now the owner of a house in Visalia and of the 
Eosenthal ranch, north of the town, which is stocked and rented. 
He has one hundred and sixty acres in Fresno county and town 
property in Fresno, and property in Kings and Riverside and Sonoma 
counties, besides his old blacksmith shop at Cochrane. At present 
he busies himself with his blacksmith and carriage sho]j at Tulare 
and with the supervision of his jn'operty. Public office has been 
thrust upon him from time to time. He was a dei:)uty sheriff in 
Vermont, a justice of the peace at Cheney, Wash., and a school 
trustee at Cochrane, Cal. He heljjed to organize the Odd Fellows 
lodge at Cochrane and the Knights of Pythias lodge at Visalia, 
also helped organize the K. of P. and I. 0. 0.' F. in Exeter, and 
holds membership in both with due honor. He was a charter mem- 
ber also of the Odd Fellows lodge at Exeter. August 22, 1878, 
he married Miss Sarah M. Thomas, and thev have a daughter, 
Sarah F. 



CHARLES W. TOZER 

A California pioneer of 1851, a miner, a fruit grower, a man of 
many interesting exi)eriences in all parts of the world, thus, 
briefly, might be summed up the biograi)hy of Charles AV. Tozer ; 
but there is very much more to tell, and no old Californian would 
regard this book as complete if in some measure it did not tell it. 
Mr. Tozer was l)orn in New York, February 10, 1830, and died in 
California in 1905. He came to the state by way of the Isthmus 
of Panama and in tlie early days thereafter mined in Amador, Cala- 
veras and Trinity counties. He was, in fact, interested in raining 
during most of the years of his busy and adventurous life. At dif- 
ferent times he dug for precious metal in California, Nevada, Ari- 
zona, Alaska, Siberia, China and Japan. After his experience in 
Nome, where he was associated with Charles D. Lane, he went to 
the state of AVasliingtou, where he installed a large stamp mill. 
To the mining fraternity of the entire covmtry he was known as 
an expert mining engineer. In tlie prosecution of his work in new 
and wild districts he frequently i^articipated in scenes peculiar to 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 339 

gold diggings at the times under consideration. During his stay 
in Arizona Indian wars were in progress and at one time he was 
a member of a party sent against the savages in defense of some 
people whose lives were in danger because of a threatend attack. 
He was sheriff of Siskiyou county, Cal., and represented his district 
in Nevada in the territorial Legislature. 

In 1891) Mr. Tozer came to Tulare county and bought part of 
the old Page & Morton ranch, west of Tulare. There he grew fruit 
for a decade, meeting with good success, and sold out in 1900, his 
ranch now being a dairy plant. He married Miss Mary Seaton, a 
native of Youngstown, Ohio, whose father, Daniel Seaton, was a 
pioneer lawyer in Amador county, where he practiced his' profes- 
sion many years. There were born to him children as follows : 
Roy S., of Tulare; Charles M., of old Mexico; Mrs. R. Q. Cople, of 
San Francisco. Roy S. Tozer, a native of California, was educated 
in the public schools of Tulare and San Francisco and at the 
University of California, at Berkeley. He began his business career 
in connection with the dried fruit trade in San Francisco, and after 
a five years' residence there came to Tulare and took over the man- 
agement of the Fair Oaks Creamery. He is now manager of the 
E. M. Cox Lumber Company, which in 1910 succeeded the Tulare 
Lumber Company, which had had an existence of many years and 
was one of the old and substantial business enterprises of the 
town. Mr. Tozer is one of the most progressive of Tulare's younger 
set of business men, interested in all that pertains to the city's 
growth and development and ready at any time to assist to the 
extent of his ability any measure inaugurated for the public welfare. 



FRANCIS C. SCOTT 

As a, soldier no less than as a citizen Francis C. Scott is deserving 
of attention by writer and reader. He was born in Martin county, 
Ind., May 19, 1841. When he was nineteen years old he enlisted 
in Company E, Twenty-fifth Regiment, Indiana Volunteer Infantry. 
His first fighting was at Fort Donelson. He saw plenty more at 
Shiloh, Corinth, Hatchers Run, Grand Junction, Holly Springs, .Mud 
Creek, Pearl River, Marion Station, Memphis, Lookout Mountain, 
Mission Ridge, Kenesaw Mountain, Buzzard's Roost, Atlanta, Chat- 
tanooga, Kingston, Goldsboro and at other points in the South. 
He has vivid recollections of the men of his command drinking 
the polluted water of Mud creek. After that fight his comj^any 
was so small because so many of its members had been killed that 



340 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

it was assigTied to provost duty in Tennessee. From there it went 
to Vicksburg and later it went with Sherman to Mississippi. A 
sixty days' furlough came soon afterward, and Mr. Scott rejoined 
his conmiand at Chattanooga. The march from Atlanta to the 
sea under Sherman he will never forget. A provisional division, of 
which his regiment was a part, was sent back to Chattanooga. From 
that point a march was made to Paducah, Ky., thence to Cincinnati 
and thence to Baltimore, where the regiment joined its old command. 
A coast voj-age followed and Mr. Scott was shipwrecked in Cuban 
waters, but was finally lauded in North Carolina and marched to 
Newberne, where fighting was resumed. After the fight at Golds- 
boro, the regiment was marched to Kaleigh, N. C. Several skirm- 
ishes followed, then came the Confederate surrender, the Grand 
Review at Washington, D. C., the discharge and the muster out. 

Returning to Indiana, Mr. Scott located in Perry county, set- 
tled down to farming and married Louisa Goble, a native of that 
state, who bore him children as follows : Harrison Y., John AV.. 
Hiram Curtis, Thaddeus M., Sidney F., Lee Esting, Flora C. All 
have died except Thaddeus M. and Sidney F. John AV. married Nancy 
Harmon, by whom lie had a son named Edmund L. By a second mar- 
riage two daughters were born. Sidney F. married Nellie Wilson 
and has had four children: Ray, Leslie, Maynard and Flora. Leslie 
has passed away. 

From Indiana Mr. Scott moved in 1866 to Montgomery county, 
Iowa, where he lived three years and then returned to Indiana. 
From there he went to Shelby county, 111., and after a year's resi- 
dence there moved to Sedgwick county, Kas., where he remained 
until he was forced to leave on account of his crops being destroyed 
by pests. From there he returned to Illinois, whence he went to 
Nebraska. There he remained four years, meantime preempting 
and improving land, after which he returned to Union Star, DeKalb 
county, and two years later took up his residence in Shannon county. 
Mo., where he conducted a hotel for four years. He again took up 
farming in Texas county for eight years. He came to Fresno 
county in 1904 and bought ten acres near Laton. Six months later 
he sold out and came to Tulare city, bought ten acres, then sold and 
purchased residence property and remained there until he came 
to Orosi. He bought ten acres half in vines and trees and the bal- 
ance in pasture. His profits from this investment are quite satis- 
factory. 

As a farmer Mr. Scott is successful along his chosen lines and 
as a citizen he is public spirited and helpful. In politics he is 
Republican. He is a member of the Grand Army of the Republic 
and is a Mason. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 341 

GEORGE TOMER 

The story of the life of a self-made man is always interesting 
and always carries its lesson of industry, integrity, perseverance and 
thrift. Of this class is George Tomer, a native of Iowa, born August 
16, 1847, whose early life was one of work and study in an environ- 
ment that was not conducive to rapid progress either in earning 
money or acquiring knowledge. But he got a start in life, largely 
l)y reason of his coming to California. He made his appearance in 
this state in 1862, quite young to undertake much responsibility, but 
of a self-reliant nature and determined to make something of and 
for himself. For several years he lived in Yolo county, variously 
employed, as occasion offered, and in 1873 came to Hanford, Kings 
county, where he acquired one hundred and eighty acres of good 
farm land, on which he has lived continuously to the present time. 
"When he first came here he helped himself financially by working 
on the Peoples ditch until that work was finished. He is included 
among the pioneers in this vicinity, and is on the membership list 
of the Settlers' League. From the first he has taken an interest in 
public affairs, and as a Republican has been elected to several impor- 
tant local offices, which he has filled with ability and credit to him- 
self and to the community. He was trustee of the Eureka school 
fourteen years, trustee and chairman of the Hanford high school 
board seven years, and was elected constable in 1878 for two years. 
In 1898 he was elected supervisor from the third district, serving- 
four years. 

As a farmer Mr. Tomer has been successful even beyond his 
expectations. He has three acres in vineyards and twenty-five in 
alfalfa. While giving attention to general farming he breeds hogs 
and cattle and makes a specialty of dairying, having at this time 
about twenty fine cows. For twenty-nine seasons he has operated 
a header very successfully. He is thoroughly up-to-date in all his 
methods and his farm is fitted with good buildings and modern 
machinery and appliances. He has shown a faculty for planning and 
working out his plans, such as many farmers do not possess, and 
which doubtless has been a factor in his steady progress. 

In Woodland, Yolo county, on September 21, 1872, Mr. Tomer 
was united in marriage with Miss Carrie Kohler, who was born in 
St. Louis, Mo., in 1855, and who was brought to California by her 
mother in 1860. All of her life since that date has been passed in 
this state and she has been a resident of Kings county since 1873. 
The following children have been born to this worthy coui)le: William 
li. ; Leonard L. ; Nettie M., who married George Tilton ; Clarence 
E. ; Clara E., widow of Walter Kelly; Annie C, widow of George 
Ehle; George, deceased; Read A.; Rose lone; King F. ; Forest W. ; 



342 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

and Isaac. All of the children were born, reared and educated in 
Tulare and Kings counties and are located in the vicinity of Hanford, 
with the exception of Clara E. and Annie C, who reside in Oakland. 



ALVIN H. SLOCUM 

It was in the beautiful Genesee valley, in the Empire state, that 
Alvin H. Slocum was born in 1837. His family went to Wisconsin 
when he was a year and a half old and remained there thirteen years, 
during whicli time he learned a good deal about farming, more about 
hunting, and in pulilic and private schools got a good start toward 
an ediication. From Wisconsin the family moved to Iowa, where 
Alvin remained until after he became of age. In 1859 he came across 
the plains to California and until the fall of 1861 he lived near the 
Feather river, in Butte county. At the first call of President Lincoln 
for volunteer soldiers for service in the Civil war he enlisted and 
was on dutj'' constantly until his discharge, taking part in many his- 
toric engagements and enduring many hardships and privations. A 
remarkable feature of his war record for which he is particularly 
thankful is that when the war came to an end he had never been 
captured by the enemy. He was mustered out at Las Cruces, N. Mex., 
and bought a team of horses and drove tlirough to Sacramento, Cal., 
near which place he worked in the mines two years. In 1866 he came 
to Tulare county witli no more definite imrpose than to hiuit awhile, 
but the country pleased him so well that he determined to remain. 
Improvements were few and there was game everywhere, liear and 
deer especially being ])lentiful. He had Bruce Wilcox as a companion 
until in 1869, when Wilcox stumbled onto a set gun and was shot to 
death. Mr. Slocum was only two feet behind him when the explosion 
came. In speaking of those earlier days, he tells of the killing of 
fourteen or fifteen bears in the autumn of one year and relates how 
in one hunt he shot twenty-one bucks; his largest bear he killed in 
1867. Jacob Cramer, Marvin AVilcox and Frank Knowles were with 
him, and they have often testified that it weighed, dressed and with- 
out liide or head, fifteen hundred and fifty pounds. Mr. Slocum went 
on his first liear lumt when he was about tw6nty-one years old and 
killed three bears, the first wild bear he had ever seen. 

As soon as was practicable after he came to the county Mr. 
Slocum began to acquire land. He took up one himdred and sixty 
acres and a little later another one hundred and sixty acres, and 
began to raise hogs and fruit, in which business he has continued 
with success to the present time. He has for many years been a 
member of the local school board and has in other ways been gener- 




(x-> yh,^/^^ 



C^''t-'»->-*^ 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 345 

oiisly active on behalf of the community. In 1880 he married Nancie 
Alma Hudson, a native of California, who has borne him six children, 
all of whom are living and all but two are married. His father, 
who was born in 1811, in New York state, died in 1904 in California, 
at the advanced age of ninety-three years. Mr. Slocum has mechanical 
genius of a high order, and has made a number of violins and guitars 
of an excellent quality. 



WILLIAM P. McCORD 

This higlily respected citizen of Hanford, Kings county, Cal., 
has duriug his long and busy career won distinction in many ways. 
He was born in Ohio February 6, 1831, and there received a limited 
education and practical instruction in different kinds of useful work. 
In 1852, when he was twenty-one years old, he came to California 
by way of New York and the Isthmus of Panama, going from New 
Y'ork to Panama on the steamer Brother Jonathan, crossing the isth- 
mus on foot and coming to San Francisco on the steamer Winfield 
Scott. He stopped on the Island of Toboga six weeks waiting for 
a steamer and retains a fond remembrance of the place and "people. 
From San Francisco he went to Sacramento and thence to Ringgold. 
After mining three months he located at Suisun, Solano county, with 
his brother, with the intention of going into the mercantile business. 
Going, down to put up some hay on the island, he learned that John 
Owens had already erected a store there, and he and his brother-in- 
law engaged in the butcher business, opening the first meat shop in 
Suisun, and traded there until 1856, when he went back east and 
brought his family out to California. Upon his return he engaged 
in teaming with his own teams, carrying supplies to Virginia Cit.v, 
Hangtown (now Placerville), and other mining centers and selling 
goods at the stores in all .the camps round about. Tims he was em- 
ployed three years, then for four years he ran a meat market in 
Vacaville. Disposing of that he returned east and farmed in Ohio 
and after four years went to Denver, Colo. From there he came 
on to Los Angeles, Cal., and soon engaged in buying cattle, whicla he 
drove to Bakersfield. He located in Bakersfield in 1872 and was a 
charter member of the first lodge of Masons organized there and is 
now the only survivor of the ori.ginal fourteen members. He estab- 
lished the McCord ranch, on the north side, a mile and a half from 
Bakersfield, constructed an irrigation ditch and for seven years fur- 
nished water free to everyone in the vicinity. Then, selling most of 
his stock, he located on government land, ])ut in alfalfa, built levees, 
extended the ditch, sold it and afterward managed it two years, under 



346 TULAKE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

the (lirtH'tioii of W. B. Carr, making during tliat time $15 a day over 
and above the support of bis family. From there he came to Tulare 
county and in 1886-87 l)OUght land at the mouth of Cross creek, twelve 
miles south of Hanford. One section, which be bought of 0. E. Mil- 
ler, at $2.75 an acre, is still owned in bis family and is now worth 
over $150 an acre. Another section, which he bought of Bird & 
Smith and which is now valuable, cost him $7.50 an acre. He bought 
in all about two thousand acres. He and his sons engaged in stock- 
raising and he and his brother built a levee and reclaimed thousands 
of acres of land from the Cross creek overflow for settlers in that 
vicinity. Mr. McCord farmed there and raised horses and stock 
on a large scale, juitting in more than one thousand acres of alfalfa 
on bis own land, and maintained his home in Hanford while o])erating 
there. The family now owns eight hundred acres of that property. 

In 1874 Mr. McCord and his son Dallas opened a butcher shop 
at Bakerstield. The latter conducted it many years and at the age 
of twenty-nine was elected sheriff of Kern county, and was the young- 
est sheriff in the state at that time, 1887. After filling the office one 
term he joined his father on the ranch. The latter retired from 
farming in 1908 and sold all his remaining land. He made a specialty 
of selling Arizona horses in San Francisco and attained prominence 
as an auctioneer at Bakerstield and San Francisco. In bis younger 
years be was an athlete and won honors at Vacaville and Suisun and 
later at Bakerstield and was first president of the Bakerstield Ath- 
letic club. For a long period be was renowned as a boxer, and when 
he was sixty-five years old be won in a wrestling match with an 
o])ponent of twenty-eight. He drove bis own teams through Tulare 
county from Tipton to Bakerstield before the advent of the railroad 
and lie and George McCord and Bill "Woswick interested Claus 
Spreckels to construct the Santa Fe railroad through this section. 
Spreckels was later president of the Valley road, wliich was even- 
tually absorbed by the Santa Fe system. Mr. McCord early liecame 
expert in the handling of horses and was champion of all horse 
trainers round San Francisco and Bakerstield for some years. 

In February, 1850, Mr. McCord married Lois Sophia Crii)i)en, 
a native of Ohio, and they had five children, two of whom are living. 
Alice, deceased, was the wife of James McCaffery, of Hanford ; Dallas, 
who was successful in business with bis father, died in 1891 ; Douglas 
lives in San Francisco; Burnside is a citizen of San Jose; Margery 
died at the age of three years. The mother of these children iiassed 
away at Hanford in April, 1911, and was buried by the order of 
Eastern Star. Mr. McCord has long been widely known as a Mason. 

When county division was talked of he was a strong advocate 
and supporter of the movement, and for every other ujibuilding 
agency of the state and county. He has never asjiired to any office, 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 347 

though solicited to become a candidate many times, and once was 
forced to accept the office of justice of the peace at Bakersfield, win- 
ning over Ills (tpi)onent five to one in a Democratic stronghold. 



ALFRED PETERSON 

A native of Sweden, Alfred Peterson is descended from old fami- 
lies of that country. He was born August 2.3, 1869, near Oskar- 
shamn, Smoland, a son of Peter and Christine (Johnson) Carlson. 
His father was a sexton, in charge of the local church and cemetery, 
and his grandfather, a Swedish cavalry soldier, did gallant service 
in the Napoleonic wars 1812-15. Alfred and his sister, Mrs. Selma 
Pospeshek, of Tulare county, are the only living children of the 
father's family. In 1884, when he was between fourteen and fifteen 
years old, Alfred Peterson came to America with his brother Oskar 
and foimd employment on a farm near Long Point, Livingston county, 
111. From there he went to Marshall county in the same state, and 
in 1889 came to Los Angeles, near which city he worked two years 
in an orange grove for Abbott Kinney. Then he went to Antelope 
Valley, intending to locate land there, but did not like the prospect 
in that vicinity and proceeded to Formosa, where he and his team 
were emjiloyed for two months in construction work, and after that 
he teamed four months at Fresno. In 1891 he came to Tulare, where 
he was variously employed until the spring of 1893, when, with Wil- 
liam Kerr as a partner, he went into the threshing business, l)uying 
an engine of twenty-four horse power. At the exi)iration of two 
years he took over the business, which he continued until in the fall 
of 1901, when he retired in order to devote himself ahuost exclusively 
to stockraising. In 1893 he liad farmed at the Oaks, north of town, 
on one hundred and sixty acres of land leased for one season. In 
the si)ring of 1894 he rented twenty acres, three and one-fourth 
miles east of Tulare on the Lindsay road, where he now lives. In the 
following fall he bought that property and in the spring of 1895 
he bought twenty acres more. In the fall of 1897 he bought forty 
acres adjoining on the east and in the spring of 1900 two hundred 
and sixty-five acres adjoining on the north. In the winter of 1905 he 
bought one hundred acres known as Bliss field, across tlie road, south 
of the other property. Pie has introduced many im])rovements and his 
land is all fenced in. He has about one hundred acres of alfalfa, 
twenty-five acres under orchard trees, farms two hundred acres to 
grain and devotes the remainder of his land to pasturage. 

The marriage of Mr. Peterson, in Chicago, in the spring of the 
year 1904, united him with Miss Hilda Anderson, who was born near 



348 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Westervik, Smoland, Sweden, and they have children named Cai'l, 
George and Helen, the first of whom is in school. While maintaining 
a deep affection for the land of his birth, Mr. Peterson is loyal to 
America, especially to California. He has long been an advocate of 
irrigation, realizing that the lack of water here is the only drawback 
to the achievement of satisfactory results in agriculture. He was for 
a time a director in the Farmers' Ditch Company, from the im- 
provements of which his own land was irrigated, and he has in 
other ways promoted the irrigation facilities of his part of the 
county and has not been less helpful in a public spirited way to 
other movements for the benefit of the people among whom he has 
cast his lot. He is a stockholder in the Bank of Tulare and in the 
Rochdale store. During the entire period of his residence in Tulare 
county he has affiliated fraternally with the lodge, encampment and 
Rebekah organization of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. 
During recent years he has devoted much of his time to travel and 
in 1902 he journeyed thirty thousand miles by railroad and steamer. 
Nine times he has crossed our own continent and twice has he re- 
turned to his old home to renew the associations of his youth, the 
first time in 1902, when he enjoyed a \4sit with his father in Oskar- 
shamn and with other relatives and friends from whom he had long 
been separated. In the spring of 1908 he went back again for five 
months, accompanied by his family. Since the establishment of the 
reformation by Martin Luther, the successive generations of the fam- 
ily have been of the Lutheran faith and Alfred was reared in its doc- 
trine, but since he came to America he has affiliated with the Metho- 
dist Episcopal church, of which his wife is also a member. 



ALFRED C. FULMER 

The grandson of a gallant soldier, Alfred C. Fulmer, of Orosi, 
Tulare county, Cal., was born in Crete, Nebr., on Independence Day, 
1890, son of William and Amelia (Wilkie) Fulmer. The former is 
deceased and the latter is now the wife of W. F. McCormick. He 
attended public schools and graduated from the grammar school 
when he was fourteen years old. In 1909 he came to Tulare county, 
where for a time he worked for wages during the summer months, 
attending winter terms of school. Following a post-graduate course 
at Orosi he began working at ranching and planned and strove 
for such successes as he might win by industrious application of the 
business ability which he certainly possessed. In the course of 
events he paid $3,500 for fifteen acres of land. He has three and a 
half acres of Thompson grapes, which brought him $1,100 in 1911, 
ten acres bearing vines of Muscat and Malaga grapes and two acres 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 351 

of pasture land. Tlioui>Ii yoimft- in years he is succeeding along 
lines that mark him as a scientific cultivator in his chosen field, and 
there are those who predict for him great achievements in the years 
that are to come. As a citizen he is public spiritedly helpful to all 
wortliv local interests. 



ISAAC N. WRIGHT 

One of the oldest residents of Tulare county, reckoning from the 
days of his pioneering, was the venerable and respected Isaac N. 
Wright, a man of industry, thrift and sound judgment, who succeeded 
for himself and was active in every movement for the advancement 
of the industrial and agricultural advancement of the county, his 
death occurring at his home at Tulare, Cal., February 17, 1910. Of 
English stock, he was born near Mount Vernon, Knox county, Ohio, 
October 13, 1823, son of AVilliam Wright, who was born, reared and 
educated in England ; he was a ])ioneer in Knox county, and began 
his life there in a log cabin which he erected in a small opening in 
the forest, improving a farm and prospering there until he removed 
to Iowa, where he passed away. His mother, Elizabeth Newton, also 
a native of England, died in Omaha, Nebr. Mr. and Mrs. Wright had 
eleven children, four of whom survive. One of the children, George, 
who came to California in ISfjO, died in Tuolumne county; James 
came with Isaac N. in 1851 and died in San Diego; a daughter, Mrs. 
Elizabeth Smith, resides at Long Beach, Cal.; and another daughter, 
Mary, resides in Montana. 

Under the tutelage of his mother, a woman of refinement and 
education, Isaac N. Wright gained his elementary knowledge of the 
contents of school books. Brought up on a woodland farm he became 
an expert chopper, and when he was sixteen years old helped to build 
a log schoolhouse near his home and was chosen to cut the saddles 
and notches for one corner of the building, atid in that crude struc- 
ture he attended school five years. Soon after he was twenty-one 
years old he entered upon an apprenticeship to the miller's trade 
and later he was the lessee and operator of a grist and sawmill on 
Owl creek, at Mount Vernon, for two years. In November, 1851, he 
sailed from New York on the steamer Georgia for Aspinwall, and 
from there he went by rail to Gorgona, whence he was taken by 
steamer to the head of navigation. The remainder of the trip across 
the isthmus of Panama, about twenty-five miles, he made on 'foot. 
From Panama he came to San Francisco on the steamer Northerner, 
arriving in December, 1851, and for two years he and his brothers 
did placer mining at Jamestown, Tuolumne county, and met with 



.S52 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

some success. In 1854 he and his brother George leased a sawmill 
which was operated four years. Then he went back to Ohio for his 
family, arriving- at his old home February, 1856, and in April that year 
he left for California with his wife and child, by the Isthmus route, 
and was in Panama April 15, the date of the historic riots there. His 
wife and child were safe in the American hotel, near the Plaza, but he 
armed himself with an old American flint-lock musket and participated 
in the affair. They made a good passage to San Francisco on the 
steamer John L. Stevens and he located at Sonora and was successful 
several years as a quartz miner and as a miller. In 1869 he moved 
his family to San Jose and prospected through the coast counties into 
the San Joaquin valley and might have embarked in stock-raising if 
the season had not been too dry. In 1870 he pre-empted one hundred 
and sixty acres of land now within the municipal limits of Tulare 
which in 1872 he traded to the railroad comjiauy for his present home- 
stead on which he located that year. He set about improving his prop- 
erty and placing it under irrigation, and almost immediately he was 
achieving success as a farmer and stockman ; much of his land was in 
alfalfa. He has raised many high-grade cattle and hogs and has a 
large dairy. His public spirit prompted him in actively promoting 
the growth and development of the city of Tulare; he was one of the 
promoters of the Kaweah Canal & Irrigating Co., was one of its direc- 
tors from the first and later was elected its president. During his ten 
years' service as school trustee, he had charge of the erection of the 
brick sclioolhouse in Tulare. A Repulilican in national politics, in local 
affairs he always advocated the election of the best man for the place 
without regard to party affiliations. 

At Mount Vernon, Ohio, January 14, 1851, Mr. Wright married 
Charlotte A. Phillips and they had four children, as follows : Victoria 
is Mrs. A. D. Nefif of Oakland, Cal. ; George W., born in Tuolumne 
county and now living at Tuolumne, is a locomotive engineer, and in 
that capacity ran the first passenger train into Sonora ; Alice L. ; 
Hattie M. is Mrs. W. J. Higdon of Tulare. The mother was born 
November 28, 1830, fourth of the six children of Charles and Addie 
(Foster) Phillips, her mother having been a native of England. She 
is the only survivor of the family and is still living on the Wright 
home at Tulare, California. 



SAMUEL EDWARD COURTNEY 

This well-known nurseryman, who is agent for the Capital Cit> 
Nursery and whose residence is in Emma Lee Colony, northwest of 
the limits of Hanford, is a native of County Antrim, Ireland, and 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 853 

was born in 1862. The Courtney progenitors came from Holland 
with Prince William and fought in the religious wars. On the 
maternal line Mr. Courtney is of Scotch and Danish extraction. He 
was about eighteen years old when he came across the ocean to 
Ontario, Canada, and he lived at Oshawa for some time thereafter. 
In 1885 he volunteered for service in the suppression of the insur- 
rection known as the Northwest rebellion. After his discharge he 
lived for two years at Fort William, with his brother, and they were 
employed in the construction of a large elevator, quartering opposite 
the historic battleground at Quaminisque; and they endured many 
hardships in that new country, the temperature often registering as 
low as sixty degrees below zero. They bought property in that 
vicinity, but eventually went to Halifax, N. S., where Mr. Courtney 
married and was engaged in farming and as a builder until 1892. 
Then he sold out and went to Boston, where he worked six months 
as a carpenter. During his stay in Boston he heard nmch of Cali- 
fornia and the wonderful opportunities it held out to the horticulturist, 
and coming out in 1893 and locating at Hanford, he found employ- 
ment at his trade, and later as a contractor, built many residences 
there and throughout the country round about. In 1902 he became 
a salesman for the Capital City Nursery Co., of Salem, Ore., and 
during his second year of work in that capacity sold $16,000 worth 
of peach and apricot trees (most of the peach trees being Albertas), 
all of which were planted in Kings county. He has handled the line 
ever since, adding to it local and home grown stock, and his yearly 
sales during the last few years have averaged $6,000. In 1903 he 
bought five acres of land for a home at the northwest corner of the 
city, pacing $100 an acre for it; it is now worth $1,000 an acre. He 
has built on it a fine house and other necessary buildings and has 
set it out to fruit trees. He is also the owner of twenty-two and a 
half acres in the Crowell addition, a good portion of which he has 
set out to fruit. Another tract which he owns is one of sixty acres, 
three and a half miles east of Hanford, which he intends to ]iut in 
vines and trees, and he intends to improve this property still further. 
Having a liking for horses and cattle, he has devoted some attention 
to raising both and intends to go into the business more extensively. 
In 1911-12 he bought out four small nurseries and has disposed of 
their stock, his nursery business being one of the most comprehensive 
in this part of the state. Its numerous offerings include twelve 
varieties of peaches, seven of plums, ten of such apples as do well 
in the San Joaquin valley country, three of prunes, three of apiicots, 
seven of tal)le grapes, Francjuette walnuts, olives, plums, eucalyptus 
trees, shade trees, palms and roses. 

The place on which Mr. Courtney lives was formerly owned by 
one Knudson, who was shot at tlie time of the Mussel Slough trouble; 



354 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

brought home, he died under an old walnut tree which is still standing 
in the nursery yard. In 1887 Mr. Courtney married at Halifax, 
N. S., Miss Annie Eoper, a native of Nova Scotia, and they have 
had children as follows : James ; Hugh, deceased ; Millicent M. ; 
Blanche M. ; and Samuel Ernest. Three of these are living. Millicent 
M. is the wife of Charles Fellows of Modesto, who is also in the 
nursery business. 

Mr. Courtney was converted in the Presbyterian church in the 
north of Ireland, when a boy. His father, James Courtney, of French 
Huguenot stock, was an evangelist in his home locality. He was 
connected with the Salvation Army of Hanford from the start and 
has always been in the fight for the right and advocates and supports 
all worthy movements. He is a National Prohibitionist, secretary and 
treasurer of the Kings county delegation, and took a leading part 
in the fight to eliminate the liquor traffic from his home city. 



E. G. MELIDONIAN 

It was on the second day of July, 1867, that the well-known citi- 
zen of California whose name is above was born at Zetoon, Armenia. 
He was duly graduated from a missionary school in 1886, with a 
competent knowledge of the English language and many who knew 
him and appreciated his fine abilities urged him to become a minister 
of the gos]iel. He was twenty years old in 1887 when he came to the 
United States, and for two years he lived in Paterson, N. J., and for 
twenty-one years he was actively employed as a weaver of silk ribbon. 
It was in New Jersey that he married Miss Mary Kahacharian, also 
a native of Armenia and a graduate of a missionary school at Marash, 
where she received a diploma in 1885. She taught school for two 
years and her husband was likewise employed for one year. She has 
borne him six children, whom they named as follows in the order of 
their nativity: Mary, Anna, Victoria, Elizabeth, Dove and Martha. 
Mary married James Erganian, who was graduated from the same 
missionary school in Armenia in which his father-in-law was edu- 
cated. After coming to the United States he took up work as a but- 
ler in Boston and Charlestown, Mass. Four years later he came to 
California and bought twenty acres of land, which he has improved 
with vineyards and orchards. Anna married Peter Besoyan and they 
have a son named Sergius and live at Yettem. Victoria graduated 
from the grammar school and is the wife of Fred Sahroian. Elizabeth 
has finished the grammar school and Dove and Martha are in school. 

On coming to California in 1908 the subject of this notice bought 
fifty acres of land at $50 an acre at Yettem. He has thirty acres of 




J>(u^cli ^/oAjuL^ 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 357 

viues, a small orchard, and ten acres of pasture, aud intends to take 
up tlie cultivation of oranges and peaclies on the other ten acres. 
Although he purchased tlie land Itnt four years ago, it is now worth 
about $300 an acre. He has built a good house on the proijerty and 
keeps enough stock and horses for his own use. Mr. Melidouian is 
a Rei)ublican, a Presbytei-iau, a member of the Royal Arcanum and 
a ]n-ogressive citizen of much public spirit. 



SANDS BAKER 

It was in the lovely country along the Hudson river, in the state 
of New York, that Sands Baker, of Dunlap, Fresno county, Cal., 
was born December 19, 1837. His parents were George and Martha 
N. (Bentley) Baker, of English ancestry, who had emigrated to New 
York state from Massachusetts. His father died when the boy was 
yet very young, and at fifteen years old Sands Baker was taken to 
Oconto county, Wis., by an uncle who was in the lumber business 
there. He early olitained a good knowledge of that industry, for 
which, however, he had no liking, his inclinations being for the 
acquisition of an education. He managed to attend a public school 
and then entered a seminary near Albany, N. Y., where one thousand 
students were being ])rei)ared for professional careers. From there 
he went to Madison, Wis., where he entered the high school, giving 
particular attention to the English course until, because of failing eye- 
sight, he was obliged for a time to give up study. liowever, he soon 
found a field of usefulness at Green Bay, Wis., where he taught 
three years in the jiublic school, and he was the author of several 
innovations the wisdom of which was soon evident to the school offi- 
cials and the public generally. One of these was the closing of the 
doors of the school house at nine a.m., thus enforcing punctuality 
or absence. Then came a period of travel for health and recreation. 
He wandered through Minnesota and Iowa and down to St. Joseph, 
Mo., where he met men who so vividly pictured the beauties and 
opportunities of California that he quickly decided to seek fortune 
here, and accordingly he left St. Joseph in the sjn-ing of 1860 with 
a party which made the journey with American horses and Califor- 
nia mustangs, by way of Salt Lake. Finding feed scarce they aban- 
doned their original course and came through Salt Lake valley. 
Indians were menacing but wrought them no barm and tliey arrived 
in Los Angeles in Seplcmltci-. From Los Angeles Mr. Baker came 
on to Visalia. At Rockyfoi-d, while he was heljjing to bale one 
hundred tons of hay, he met a county superintendent of schools who 
wanted to employ a teacher. There were at that time only two iiub- 



358 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

lie schools in the county and Mr. Baker established a private school 
which he tau^^:ht two years. After this he went north to investigate 
the mines of eastern California and was soon employed as principal 
of the pviblic school at Downieville, Sierra county. He closed the 
schools daily at one p.m., and spent the afternoons in the mines, 
but careful study of conditions and results convinced him that there 
was nothing- in mining for gold without the investment of considerable 
capital. So successful was he there as a teacher tliat he was given 
an increase of salary of $40 a month to continue his work. Return- 
ing to Visalia, he taught a private school for about six months. For 
some time he filled the offices of revenue assessor, ganger of liquors 
and inspector of tobacco with increasing responsibility and emolu- 
ment, meanwhile serving four years on the board of education of 
Visalia. lie acted one year as deputy county assessor and soon be- 
came known as an expert mathematician and was often called on to 
figure interest on notes and accounts and to straighten out tangled 
bookkeeping, for which services he was well i^aid. This work he con- 
tinued until his health began to fail. 

In October, 1872, Mr. Baker married Sarah Josephine Drake, a 
native of Ohio, whose j^arents came to California in 1870, settling 
near Tulare lake and later at Squaw valley. On her mother's side 
she was descended from Virginian ancestry. Seven children were 
born to them: Martha A., Royal R., Chauncey M., Lulu M., Blanche 
C, Pearl A., and Elsie F. ; and Mrs. Baker and her husband adopted 
a boy, who became known as William M. Baker. Martha A. married 
L. B. King and bore him four children. Royal R. married Nellie J. 
Hodges and they live at Farmersville, and have a son and a daughter. 
Chauncey M. married Olive E. Hargraves of Mendocino county, who 
taught school at Dunlap. Lulu M. married J. A. Mitchell, postmaster 
at Dunlap, and they have a son and a daughter. Blanche C. mar- 
ried Charles F. Hubbard, of Stockton. Elsie F. married James R. 
Hinds. Pearl A. is teaching in the Merriman school at Exeter. Wil- 
liam M. is ranching near Exeter. Most of Mr. Baker's children have 
attended the high school at Visalia. Blanche C. was graduated from 
a lousiness college at Stockton in 1902 and is a competent stenographer 
and bookkeeper. 

From A'isalia Mr. Baker removed to Shipes valley, now j^o))- 
ularly known as the Foot of Baker mountain. He took up a squat- 
ter's claim and pre-emiited and homesteaded land and has added to 
his holdings from time to time imtil he has a fine stock ranch of two 
thousand acres, much of it well improved, some of it under valuable 
timber. He has one hundred and twenty acres of valley land de- 
voted to fruit and alfalfa. He could very easily farm five hundred 
acres, but he gives attention principally to stock. He has on his proj)- 
ertv fullv five thousand cords of wood and indiA'idual oak trees which 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 359 

would cut fifty cords eacli. He keeps about two liuudi'cd liead of 
stock and twenty horses. He has sold many cattle at Hume Mills, 
about twenty miles away. His ho,s>s have brought him ten to twelve 
and a half cents a pound on the hoof at times. He has a stallion, 
thoroughbred and Percheron, and has raised fine stock for market, 
always finding ready sale, and Mr. Baker has maintained a high 
reputation for grade and quality. 

In ])olitics, Mr. Baker is a Repulilican wlio is i)roud of tlie fact 
that he cast his first Presidential vote for Aln-aham Lincoln, and he 
has for many years filled the oflices of school trustee and clerk of the 
local school board. Formerly he was an active member of the Ma- 
sonic order. 



FRANK OSBORN 

In Fountain county on the Wabash river in Indiana I' rank Usboru, 
a musician and singer of note and now superintendent of the Tulare 
County Hospital at Visalia, was born May 2, 1851, a son of Oliver 
and Margaret (Dyer) Osborn, natives respectively of Ohio and of 
New Jersey. Oliver OsI)orn brought his family to California in 
1875 and settled in Tulare county on the Upper Tule river near 
Globe, where he bought land and achieved success as a stockraiser. 
His wife, who was a singer of exceptional ability even when she was 
more than seventy years old, died there in 1898 and he in August, 
1909. Mr. Osborn was a man of influence in the connnunity and 
during all his active life gave much attention to educational mat- 
ters. He and his wife were devout members of the Christian church. 
Of their thirteen children four survive: Oliver P., a rancher near 
Porterville; Frank, of this review; Mrs. Sarah A. Evans, of Indiana, 
and Mrs. Mary E. Clark, of Missouri. 

From liis boyhood Frank Osborn has been familiar with all the 
details of stockraising and until 1897 was identified with his father 
in that industry. As long as he can remember he has been a singer, 
he having inherited mai'ked musical ability from his talented mothei-. 
As such he liecame known throughout all the country round about 
Visalia, and he was long in great demand as a teacher of \'ocal 
classes during the wintei' tiiDiiths, for many years leading the choir 
of the Chi'istian chui-ch at N'isalia. In 1897 he was appointed super- 
intendent of the Tulai'e County Hospital at Visalia, which position 
he has since filled with a degree of ability and integrity which lias 
commended him to all the jjcople of the county. He has in all his 
relations with his fellowmen i>i-oven himself ]mblie spirited in an 
eminent degree. Fraternally he affiliates with the Knights of Pythias. 



360 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

In 1870 Mr. Osboru married Miss Ellen Marksbury, a native of 
Kentucky, who was so situated during the Civil war that she was an 
eye-witness of many engagements between the Federal and Confeder- 
ate troops. A detailed account of her experiences and the conditions 
which made them possible could not but make a most interesting 
volume. 

To Frank and Ellen (Marksbury) Osboru have been born chil- 
dren as follows: Mrs. Edna Hannaford, who has children named 
Lura, Duke and Laura ; Charles H.. who married Miss Minta Berry, 
daughter of Senator G. S. Berry of Lindsay, and has children named 
Audra and Irma; Earl, who married Maud Carter, who has borne 
him a child whom they have named Rolla ; and Gladys, wife of E. L. 
Cary, of Stockton, who has a daughter, Ellen L. Cary. 



WILLIAM R. MILLER 

It was in England that "William R. Miller, who now lives eight 
miles southwest of Hanford, was born October 26, 1843. When he 
was about eighteen months old his parents brought him to Troy, 
N. Y., and he lived there and at Saratoga, in the same state, until he 
was nineteen years old. Then he enlisted in the One Hundred and 
Twenty-fifth Regiment, New York "\"olunteer Infantry, with which 
he served until June, 1865, when he was honoralily discharged at 
Alexandria, Va. As a member of Company C of that organization 
he was included in the second army corps of the army of the Potomac, 
participating in many engagements, including the fight in the Wilder- 
ness, the battle of Spottsylvania Court House, where he was wounded ; 
the fighting in front of Petersburg, where he cast his first Presiden- 
tial vote for Lincoln, and other encounters no less important. His 
wound caused him to be in the hospital three months. After the war 
he farmed in New York state until April, 1870, when he located 
sixteen miles north of Webster City, Iowa, and there farmed and 
raised stock until 1887, when he came to California. After stoi)i)ing 
a short time at Tulare he went to the west side, near Dudley, accom- 
panied by his immediate family, his father and his wife's mother. 
He and his father and his brother took up land there which soon 
proved so uni)romising for farming purposes that his father and 
brother abandoned their claims, but he retained his, which after he 
had sold part of it proved to be valuable oil land, but this holding 
is not the least of his possessions. Returning to Tulare county, he 
soon went to Delano, where he jnit in two crops, and in June, 1899, 
came to Kings county and worked a year near Armona. In his 
second year there he liought twenty-two and a half acres, eight miles 
south of Armona, on which he built a house and put all other im- 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 361 

provenients, setting six acres to a vineyard and a family orchard and 
giving the remainder over to alfalfa, and this is his present home 
jihiee. He began here as a stockraiser and was snccessful for some 
3'ears. His son, Fred C. Miller, now also operates a dairy on the 
place. In 1911 Mr. Miller bought forty acres of the Jacobs tract, 
south of his ranch, on which there are improvements. 

In 1867 Mr. Miller took for his wife Caroline A. Chesterman, of 
English birth, who was brovight to the United States when three 
months old and grew to womanhood in New York state. They have 
five living children: The Eev. Charles N. Miller, who is blind, is an 
ordained minister of the gospel and resides at Bakersfield; Carrie M. 
married John C. Goodale, of Denair, Cal. ; Jessie L. is the wife of 
Clarence E. McMillen, of Bakersfield, Cal; May M. married E. W. 
Houston, of Visalia; Fred C, the youngest son of the family, mar- 
ried Anna J. Erni and is ranching and dairying on his father's land. 
William E., Jr., was accidentally killed by a boiler explosion, aged 
twenty-five years, and Mina M. was married to E. E. Houston and 
died aged about twenty. 

Mr. Miller keeps alive memories of the days of the Civil war 
by association with his comrades of McPherson Post, G. A. E. He 
is a genial man, given to pleasant reminiscence, and is welcomed as a 
friend wherever he may go. His interest in the welfare of the com- 
munity makes him a citizen of much public spirit. 



OLIVEE P. MAEDIS 

One of the Kentuckians who is making a record for himself in 
Tulare county, Cal., is Oliver P. Mardis, who is farming on the Exe- 
ter road, out of Visalia. He was born in Laurel county, Ky., Sep- 
tember 5, 1855, and when lie was nine years old was taken by his 
parents from Kentucky to Johnson county, Kans., where he finished 
his education in the public school and gained a practical knowledge 
of farming. In 1875, when he was twenty years old, he came to 
Colusa county, Cal., and worked there a year for wages. In 1876 he 
"hired out" to a farmer in the Deer Creek district, in Tulare county, 
where he later bought eighty acres of land, mostly under alfalfa. 
When wheat began to be gathered on the farms round about to the 
extent of ten sacks to the acre he sold his eighty acres of alfalfa land 
and bought a half section near by, which he farmed until Deceml)er 1, 
1908, when he came to his present ranch of fifty-two and one-half 
acres near Visalia. He keeps an average of two hundred and twenty- 
five hogs, which yield him a good annual profit. Twenty-three acres 
of Egyptian corn has given Iiim fifty tons, and his land has returned 



362 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

him seventy bushels of ludiau corn to the acre. He has ten acres of 
alfalfa yielding him several crops each year. Many melons are 
grown on his place, he has raised wheat seven feet tall and has five 
thousand eucal\-]")tus trees. 

In 1883 Mr. Mardis married Miss Josephine Collins, a nati\e of 
California, whose father was a pioneer in the Deer Creek section. 
She ])assed away, leaving two children, Oliver and Alice. By his 
marriage with Miss Lucy Bunton, a native of Missouri, Mr. Mardis 
has two daughters, Anna and Claudine. As a farmer he is thor- 
oughly up to date in every dejiartment of his work, and his pair of 
finely matched black colts for which he has been offered $600 is in- 
dicative of the quality of his stock. As a citizen he is helpful in a 
public-spirited way to all worthy local interests. 



BEN M. MADDOX 

The descendant of southern ancestors and himself a native of the 
south, Ben M. Maddox was born in Summerville, Chattanooga county, 
Ga., October 18, 1859. the son of George B. T. and Sarah (Dickson) 
Maddox, they too being natives of that state. In 1877, when he was 
seventeen years old, Ben M. Maddox started out in the world on 
his own res]ionsibility. at that time going to Texas, where he hunted 
buffalo on the plains. From there he went to Arizona and followed 
mining from the sjiring of 1878 until P^ebruary of the following year. 
In the meantime he and some friends had determined to come to 
California, and in February, 1879, the party of three left Prescott. 
Ariz., having one pack horse and one saddle horse between them 
for the overland trail. The journey being safely accomplished, Mr. 
Maddox went to the mining camp of Bodie, Mono county, where he 
secured work on a newspaper, and subsequently he found work of 
a similar character in Mammoth City, same county. Xews])a])er work 
then gave place to mining, following this for a time in Mammoth City, 
and later, in 1880, in Fresno Flats. Madera county, where he was 
employed in the Enterprise mine, and in the latter place he also 
clerked in a hotel for a time. 

In September, 1881, Mr. Maddox went to Mariposa, where he 
found work at the printer's trade on the Gazette, and the following 
year, in San Francisco, he worked on the Chronicle. Giving \\\i work 
on the latter paper in October, 1882, he returned to Mariposa and 
was employed on the Herald until he purchased the paper later in 
the same year. After continuing the publication of the Herald for 
four years he sold it in 1886 and the same year came to Tulare 
county, with the intention of purchasing the Tulare Register. Being 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 363 

unable to carry out this plan at that time he returned to San Francisco 
and resumed work at the printer's trade. This was for a short 
time only, however, for on October 18, 1886, he was appointed deputy 
clerk (if the superior court and thereafter gave his whole time and 
attention to the duties and obligations which thus devolved upon him. 

A hope which Mr. Maddox had long cherished was realized when, 
on Thanksgiving Day, 1890, he became the ownei- and proi)rietor 
of the Visalia Times. For two years he ran the paper as a weekly, 
but on February ,22, 1892, the paper became a daily, and as the Visalia 
Daily Times it has ever since been published under his al)le management. 
The management of his newspaper has not absorbed all of his thought 
and attention, as the following will show: When the Mount Whitney 
Power Company was organized in 1899 he was elected a director, in 
1901 was made secretary of the corporation, and on September 9, 
1902, he became business manager of the company, and he still holds 
this responsible office, having in the meantime relinquished to some 
extent the active management of his newspaper in order to devote his 
time to the interests of the power company. In 1894 he was nominated 
for secretarj' of state on the Democratic ticket, but was defeated in 
the election. As secretary of the Democratic state central committee 
he served two terms, and several times was chairman of the Demo- 
cratic county central committee. He also served as president of the 
Visalia board of trade for four years and for some time was a director 
of that body. At the present time he is chairman of the county 
state highway commission, a director of the Visalia electric railroad, 
president of the Encina Fruit Co., president of the Evansdale Fruit 
Co., and a director of the Producers' Savings Bank. Some years ago 
Mr. Maddox in company with William H. Hammond opened up 
and put on the market the Lindsay Heights and Nob Hill Orange 
colonies, orange land which is now fully developed. 

At Mariposa, Cal., March 15, 1883, Mr. Maddox was married 
to Miss Evalina J. Farnsworth, a native of California. They have 
five children, Morley M., Hazel C, Euth E., Dickson F. and Ben 
M., Jr. Fraternally Mr. Maddox is a Knight Templar and a thirty- 
second degree Mason; also Itelonging to the Shrine, the Knights of 
Pvthias and the Woodmen of the World. 



WILLIAM J. McADAM 

The ranch of this enterprising Tulare county farmer is one of the 
well-known McAdani ranches. It is located five miles west of Tulare 
and consists of three liundix'd and twenty acres. Mr. McAdam has 
one hundred and twenty acres rent('(l out for dniiy imiposes. The 



364 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

remainder of the ranch is oradnally being devoted to alfalfa and all of 
it but five acres will be under that grass in a short time. 

The principal business of Mr. McAdam has been stock-raising, 
though he is planning a dairy for the fraction of the ranch which will 
not be under alfalfa when his scheme is worked out. He now owns 
forty-five head of dairy cows and twenty-five head of young stock. 
Formerly he conducted the dairy which he now leases out, and in 
the days of his management of it he milked forty cows. He kept 
six hundred hogs, and rented on the outside three hundred acres 
which he gave over to grain raising and which produced in 1909 and 
1910 an average of eighteen sacks to the acre, and in 1911 an average 
of sixteen sacks to the acre. He is one of the progressive up-to-date 
farmers, stockraisers and dair^inen of Tulare county, and those who 
know him and the quality of his land look for developments in the 
future which will be well worth studying. 

William J. McAdam was born August 27, 1887, in Pembina 
county (then in Dakota Territory). Along with his agricultural inter- 
ests he is now actively interested in the Castle Dome Silver and Lead 
mines of his father, Eobert McAdam, they being located in Yuma 
countv, Arizona. 



JAMES M. AKIN 

The Akin family is an old English one and the American branch 
of it was established before 1700. Still other Akins have come over 
from England since, and it was from pilgrims and pioneers that 
James M. Akin, who lives near Springville, Cal., was brought down 
through successive generations to his own. He was born in the state 
of New York in 1850, his mother dying at his birth, and in 1852 
his father came overland to California. The boy was reared as a 
member of the family of an uncle in his native state, attended school 
there and did chores on the farm until he was eighteen years old. 
Then he came to California, where his father had preceded him 
l)y al)out sixteen years. Locating in Sacramento, he remained there 
about one year, then came to Tulare county. His life here began 
in 1870 and for two years thereafter his home was in the vicinity 
of A'isalia. In 1880 he settled on his ranch of three hundred and 
twenty acres three miles from Siiringville. Early in his career here 
he engaged in stock-raising, in which he made so much success that 
he is considered one of the substantial men of his neighborhood. 
The confidence reposed by his fellow townsmen in his ability and 
intelligence is shown in the fact that they have conferred upon him 
for twenty years the honor of the office of school trustee. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 367 

Farming and stock-raising have not commanded all of Mr. Akin's 
attention. He and his son Claude have twelve mining claims, which 
will be developed soon, and the latter has copper and zinc mines 
near Spriugville. In 1911 Mr. Akin started a nurserj- known as 
Akin's nurserj', which is devoted to the raising of oranges. He 
makes a specialty of Wasliington navels, of which he has twenty 
thousand two-year-old budded trees. In 1913 thirty thousand more 
will be planted, the new industry promising to become very im- 
portant in this section. It was in 1880 that Mr. Akin married Sarah 
Hudson, who was born in California and who bore him five children, 
all of whom, except the youngest, are married. Their names are 
Claude, Lola, Lerta, Leeta and Melva. They are native children of 
California. All of them were born in Tulare county, and four of 
them were educated at Springville, and the fifth is being educated 
there. Their mother died February 2, 1911, and was buried near 
Springville. It will be interesting to note that Mr. Akin was in- 
duced to come to California in quest of health. In order to be in 
the open air as much as possible he spent his first six j^ears in the 
state hunting in the woods and on the plains. He relates that 
within a comparatively short time he and his l)rother-in-law killed 
seven bears. He has literally grown up with the country, and being 
a man of public spirit, has done much for the general welfare. Fra- 
ternallv he is a member of the Court of Honor. 



W. C. GALLAHER 

One of the successful and highly esteemed of the younger 
business men of Hanford, Kings county, Cal., is W. C. Gallaher, 
wholesale and retail dealer in meats. Born in Missouri, February 
11, 1874, Mr. Gallaher came to the vicinity of Hanford when lie was 
about eleven years old and grew to manhood in Kings county. !iis 
first business engagement was as an assistant in the meat market 
of E. Selbah, at Lemoore, where he rejnained for two ;ind a lialf 
years, during which time Mr. Selbah passed away. Mr. Gallaher in 
partnershiji with I. Burlington then leased the market from Mrs. 
Selbah and for a year and a half ran the business, but at the end of 
that time Mr. Gallaher sold out his interest in the market. During 
the succeeding three years he owned and operated the old Hanford 
Stables, one of the oldest livery and feed stables in the town, which 
was destroyed by fire shortly after he sold it. On September 10, 
1900, Mr. Gallaher opened a nu'at market on the site of the ^^ogel 
store on Seventh street, but this establislmient was destroyed by fire 
January 3, li)03, and ho later occupied a little shack which ])roved 



368 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

most inadequate to his needs. On tlie tirst of February, 19U5, be 
moved into his present building on North Irwin street, and here 
he has since done a general business in meat and kindred merchandise, 
both retail and wholesale. Mr. Gallaher took into partnership on 
January 1, 1912, G. T. Lundh, who assumed the duties of inside 
manager of the retail department, and in connection with this 
business Mr. Gallaher owns and leases on shares a three hundred 
and twenty-acre stock ranch five miles south of Hanford. He buys 
and feeds stock, and thus supplies his own market with the best of 
beef, also being a heavy shipper to the San Francisco market. 

All in all, his business is one of the largest of its kind in the 
countj% and he is entitled to much credit for the fact that he started 
it on a very small scale and has gradually but steadily built it up to 
its present fine and promising proportions. 

In 1897 Mr. Gallaher married Miss Laura Hess of Tulare. 
Socially he affiliates with Hanford organizations of the Benevolent 
Protective Order of Elks, Woodmen of the World, and Independent 
Order of Odd Fellows, belonging to all local bodies of the last men- 
tioned order, and he is also a member of the Portuguese Orders of 
I. D. E. S. and U. P. E. C. The same enterprise which he has 
exhibited in his private business he manifests in all that he does for 
the general welfare, for he has an abiding faith in the future of Han- 
ford and is ready at all times to do anything within his ability to 
further its development and prosperity. 



U. G. KNIGHT 

The editor of the Exeter Swi, published at Exeter, Tulare county, 
Cal., was born in Constantine, Mich., in the late '60s, a son of Captain 
G. W. Knight, of Company E, Third Regiment, Minnesota Infantry, 
who served nearly five years including all of the period of the Civil 
war, and won praise for his bravery, especially at the time of the 
Indian uprising in Minnesota and Dakota in 1863, in the supjiression 
of which he took part with his regiment. Captain Knight i)assed 
away in Nebraska in 1898. His ■nddow is living in Los xVngeles 
county, Cal. 

The future editor of the Snn accompanied his parents to Webster 
county, Neb., when he was but a few years old, and there grew to 
manhood and acquired an education, be.ginning his active career as 
a school teacher. In 1886 he journeyed to California and spent a 
year in looking over the state, but went back to the Grasshopper 
State, where he was married in 1895 to Miss Daisy M. Garner, of 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 3fi9 

Invale, Neb., who has borne him a son now a student in the Exeter 
high school. 

In his early days, Mr. Knight turned his attention to newspaper 
work, almost entirely editorial and reportorial, and was from time to 
time employed on the Omaha Bee, the Omaha World-Herald, the 
Lincoln Journal, the Kansas City Star and several papers in Nebraska. 
Eventually he came to the conclusion that, to be a competent all-round 
newspaper man in business for himself, he should understand the 
types and presses. So, dro])ping work at far better pay, he took 
emploTOient in the press rooms of the Hebron (Neb.) Journal, and 
later he held cases on the Denver Daily News and other large papers, 
also working in and out of editorial offices as occasion offered. 

Soon after his marriage, Mr. Knight turned to the soil as a 
farmer in Nebraska. A certain amount of success rewarded him 
for several years, but two or three "lean" years drove liim out of 
the business. In 1900 he passed a civil service examination and was 
given a responsible position in the semi-secret service of tlie United 
States, in which his duties consisted in part in obtaining data and 
official figures recjuired by the Government. In this work ho traveled 
over most of the Middle and Mountain states, encountering many 
dangers, but turning in such satisfactory information that he was 
urged to retain the place. He resigned, however, and went to Alberta, 
Canada, stayed a year, then came back to California. 

Here he again engaged in newspaper work, at first as editor and 
part owner of the Oxnard Siin. Later that paper was merged with 
the O.rnard Courier and he continued as editor, but in 1905 he sold 
out his interests at Oxnard and became editor and part owner of 
the San Pedro News, a daily. After six months he sold out and was 
given editorial employment on the Los Angeles Herald, which he gave 
up a few months later to go on the Los Angeles Examiner. In Jan- 
uary, 1908, he resigned and moved to Exeter to take an interest in 
the Sun, of which he later became sole proprietor and editor. 

The Sun is a sprightly paper, more newsy than most pa]iers pul}- 
lished in small towns, well liked and well patronized. It lias prac- 
tically grown up with the town, is now twelve years old, and as a 
booster of Exeter and vicinity it has been a factor in tlie uplift of 
the city. To considerable extent Mr. Knight is interested in real 
estate, having sold many of the choicest tracts in the vicinity. He 
is considered one of the best authorities and judges of land in the 
county. He is also interested in banking, having a large number of 
shares in the new Citrus Bank, which was established in Exeter 
in May, 1912, and was offered a directorship in this institution but 
did not care to accept. Fraternally, he affiliates with the Masons, 
Red Men, Modern Woodmen and other secret and beneficial organiza- 
tions, including the Masonic auxiliary oi'der of the Eastern Star. 



370 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

He has one of the finest homes in Exeter, a large house and an orange 
grove inside the city Kmits. He is a member of the Exeter Board of 
Trade and in many ways has demonstrated a pnlilic spirit that makes 
him a most helpful citizen with his pen and otherwise. 



DR. GEORGE GORDON 

The profession of veterinary jnedieine and surgery has within 
the last half-century taken a recognized place among the learned pro- 
fessions and in its membership are included many practitioners who 
have given to its study and research as much time and thought as 
the average physician. The veterinary colleges are well equipped 
and their courses of study are very thorough, enabling their students 
to become most efficient in their branch of treatment. One of the most 
proficient and popular veterinarians in central California is Dr. George 
Gordon, whose establishment at the end of South Douty street, Han- 
ford, is one of the places of interest of that town. 

Dr. Gordon was born in Scotland, January 4, 1870, and was there 
reared to manhood. His earlier education was obtained in public 
schools in Banffshire and in Dundee, and later he took a course at 
the London Polytechnic, wliere he gave two years to the pre])aration 
for his professional education, which was finished in the Veterinary 
College of San Francisco, except for six months of experience at 
the Chicago stockyards, where he did post mortem work. His diploma, 
given him in San Francisco, bears date 1904. The first fifteen months 
of his professional experience were spent at Lemoore, whence he came 
to Hanford to establish his veterinary hospital, which has stalls 
for the accommodation of twenty horses. The hospital and grounds 
are located at the south end of South Douty street and occupy five 
acres. It is fully equipjjed with chemical and microscopical labora- 
tories. There is also a dental department in connection, with a com- 
plement of dental and surgical instruments, and he is thus enabled 
to give every branch of the veterinary profession the best possible 
service. In San Francisco, before he entered the veterinary college, 
he conducted a dog hospital and became well known as a canine ex- 
pert, and he also makes the treatment of diseases of the dog a feature 
of his practice here. In February, 1910, he was appointed livestock 
inspector for Kings county and in April following was made a state 
dairy inspector. He finds time from his professional duties to affiliate 
with various fraternal bodies, including the Royal Order of Scottish 
Clans, Lemoore lodge and Hanford chapter, No. 74, R.A.M., the In- 
dependent Order of Odd Fellows and the Woodmen of the World. 
The able assistant of Dr. George Gordon is W. D. Gordon, who 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 373 

has been identified with his enterprise since 1906 and is now taking 
the course at the San Francisco Veterinary College. Pie will grad- 
uate with the class of 1!)1.'), after which he will enter actively upon 
the practice of \'eterinary medicine and surger>'. 

Dr. George Gordon left Scotland in 1888, when he was eighteen 
years old, and has since returned to his native land four times. His 
travels in South America haxe been extensive and he passed two 
years in the West Indies as a representative of the International 
Phosphate company, and was for a time located on Connitable island, 
off the northeast coast of Fi'ench Guiana, near the city of Cayenne. 
While in South America he became assistant superintendent of the 
aforesaid International Phosphate company, and thus had a most 
valuable and interesting experience in a line only indirectly connected 
with his profession, but one of great importance in furthering pro- 
duction and commerce. 



J. W. B. RICE 

As farmer, cattleman and orange grower, J. W. B. Rice, whose 
activities center in the vicinity of Lemon Cove, has become well 
known tliroughout Tulare county. He is a native of Iowa, born 
December 30, 18(J0, who lived in his native state until he was eigiiteen 
years of age. At that time he set out to make his own way in the 
world, and Nebraska was the scene of his earlier independent labors. 
He had already had some experience as game collector for Central 
Park in New York Citj'. After reaching Nebraska he found employ- 
ment until in the fall of 1882, when he went to Minnesota and thence 
back to Iowa. There he was employed three years collecting game for 
said Central Park, among them the Whooping Crane or American 
Ostrich which were worth al)out $30 apiece. In capturing tliese 
birds he had many enjoyable and interesting experiences and some 
that were more unpleasant at the time than they are as reminiscences 
of the ]iast. In April, 1886, he came to California, and in 1889 he 
married Miss Cora Marks, a native of Iowa, who bore him several 
children: Charles James and Mary Clementine (twins); Pearl, aged 
nineteen; Roy M., aged seventeen; Villa Praukie, Elmo D., Inez, 
Emma, Alice, Fern and Robert. Villa passed away, having been 
drowned when eighteen months old. Those of the younger cliildi'en 
who are of the school age are acquiring education. Mr. Rice's father, 
James Nicholas Rice, a native of Indiana, and his good wife are still 
living in Cherokee county, Iowa. Mrs. Rice's parents descended from 
German ancestors; her father is dead, Taut her mother survives. 

A year after he came to California, Mr. Rice, who had alreadv 



374 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

begun in the cattle business, bought forty acres of land. He soon 
hoiuesteaded one hundred and sixty acres and acquired another one 
hundred and sixty acres by purchase. Securing other tracts subse- 
quently, he came in time to own six hundred acres. He has about 
twenty acres of oranges but devotes much of his attention to cattle. 
When he came to the county, a little more than a quarter of a century 
ago, there was no business but cattle raising and the inhabitants were 
all cattle men or cattlemen's wives and children. In the development 
that has intervened he has had his full part, for lie-is public-spiritedly 
devoted to all affairs of the community. Politically he is a Socialist. 

Mr. Rice is the pioneer orange grower of Tulare county. He 
took the first prize at the Citrus Fair at Fresno before the orange 
business of Tulare county had started, and in 1894 exhibited some 
beautiful oranges at the Palace Hotel at Visalia, which were the first 
oranges grown from budded trees to secure a premium in Tulare 
county. Mr. Rice is the manager of the Marx and Rice Co., growers 
and shi]ipers of oranges, pomelos, limes and lemons; also nursery 
stock. 



T\^AX C. BURKE, D. D. S. 

The profession of dentistry approaches nearer and nearer to 
the realm of exact science with each passing decade and only those 
of its devotees who keep informed of the details of its progress win 
permanent success. One of the up-to-date doctors of dental surgery 
of central California is Ivan C. Burke, of Hanford, Kings county. 
Dr. Burke is a progressive son of a progressive state, having been 
born in Crawford county, Kans., September 21, 1885. When he 
was about five years old he was taken to "Walla Walla, Wash., in the 
public schools of which city he received his ]iractical English educa- 
tion. Desiring to follow a professional career, in 1904, when about 
nineteen years old, he entered the dental department of the College 
of Physicians and Surgeons of San Francisco, from which he was 
duly graduated with the D. D. S. degree in June, 1907. immediately 
after which Dr. Burke began the practice of his profession in Seattle. 
Wash. In 1908 he came to Hanford and opened an office in tlie First 
National Bank building where he has since devoted himself with 
much success to the general practice of his profession, keeping abreast 
of the times, employing the best facilities in the way of instruments 
and appliances, and his work is of a class well calculated to give 
permanent satisfaction. 

As he has prospered in his profession Dr. Burke has from time 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 375 

to time made judicious investments in real estate. Besides some 
good town property, his holdings include one hundred and sixty acres 
near Walla Walla, Wash., which under the superintendency of a hired 
farmer is producing good alfalfa in paying quantities. At Hanford 
Dr. Burke is popular in all circles, political, professional, social and 
fraternal, and his puhlie spirit has brought him high esteem as a 
citizen. He is a member of the Independent Order of Red Men and 
is devoted heart and soul to all of the interests of that beneficent 
order. His marriage in 1909 united him with Miss Vera A. Donald- 
son, of Kansas, a charming woman of many accomplislnnents, who 
is bravely aiding him in his struggle for professional and social 
advancement. 



G. X. WENDLING 

A native of New York, G. X. AVendling came to California in 
January, 1888, and was in the employ of the Valley Lumber Company 
of Fresno until November 3, 1889, when he located at Hanford. 
Probably no man did more than he to promote the establishment of 
Kings county in 1893. To that end he labored indefatigably and with 
great efficiency for months, appearing so often at Sacramento as 
sponsor for the proposed organization that he came to be known as 
the "Father of Kings County." When he came to the town he 
engaged in the lumber business on his own account and he was one 
of Hanford 's foremost citizens until February 21, 1897, when he 
removed to San Francisco, where he has large and varied interests. 
He organized in that city the California Pine Box and Lumber Co., 
which turns out one hundred and sixty million feet of box material 
annually. He organized also the Weed Lumber Company, of Weed, 
Cal., the productiveness of which he has seen increased from eight 
million feet of lumber in its first year to seventy-five million feet 
at the present time. An idea of the extent of his activities may be 
gleaned from the following list, showing his connection with various 
enterprises. He is a director in the Anglo & London-Paris National 
Bank of San Francisco and president of the Napa Lumber Company, 
the Stanislaus Lumber Company, the Big Basin Lumber Company, 
\'ice-president of the Klamath Development Company of Klamatli 
Falls, Ore., and president of the Weudling-Johnson Lumber Com- 
pany, the California Pine liox Lumber Company, tlie Weiidling 
Lumber Company, the Wendling-Nathan Lumber Company, tlie Weed 
Lumber Company and the First National Bank of Weed. 



376 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

TULARE HOME TELEPHONE AND TELEGRAPH COMPANY 

Those admirable jinblie utilities of Tulare, its telephone and 
telegraph service, are controlled in part by the corporation named 
above, which is officered as follows: G. C. Harris, president; Dr. T. D. 
Blodgett, vice-president; Sol A. Rosenthal, secretary and treasurer; 
G. C. Harris, S. B. Anderson, N. G. Cottle, Dr. T."d. Blodgett and 
Sol A. Rosenthal, directors. This company took over the plant of the 
Pacific States Telephone and Telegraph Company, and transformed 
its Tulare business into that of a local corporation. Nearly all the 
stockholders are men of Tulare and vicinity, and the people of the 
town take much interest in the company's success and advancement. 
The Home company has put in two miles of cable and practically 
rebuilt the line, discarding everything antiquated in the operating 
system for something up to date and thoroughly efficient. This has 
been done regardless of cost and with a view single to the very best 
service, a fact which the business community fully appreciates. The 
present system, known as the common battery system, is so satisfac- 
tory that the number of the company's patrons has been increased 
three hundred in the last three years. The president of the new com- 
pany was its founder and the chief promoter of the project along 
local lines. A second company known as the Ijindsay Home Tele- 
phone and Telegraph company, was subsequently organized, which 
company was incorporated with aims and conditions similar to 
those of the Tulare City company, and the ])lant was bought from 
])rivate parties in Lindsay. Plans are now being perfected to im- 
prove it and jnit the system on a plane with that of the Tulare City 
company. Both comi)anies make connections with the long distance 
lines of the Pacific States Telephone and Telegrajih company. 

The president of this company, Gurdon C. Harris, a man of long 
and informing ex])erience in the telejihone business, was long con- 
nected with the business of the Bell Telephone company in Minnesota, 
where he was born and passed the earlier years of his life. He came 
to California in March, 1905, still in the service of the Bell company, 
for a time as division wire chief, the duties of which position took 
him to practically every part of the state, and for two years his 
head(iuarters were at Sacramento. There he became a member of 
the Sacramento lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of 
Elks, and since he came to Tulare he has been made a Mason in Tu- 
lare City Lodge No. 326, F. & A. M. In a iiosition in which he is in con- 
stant touch with the people of his community, in a social as well as in 
a business way, he is commending himself to all with whom he has 
communication as a courteous and obliging senii-jiublic official who 
has the interest of the patrons of his company and of the people at 
large close to his heart and desires to render to everyone every due 
consideration or concession. 







^ 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 379 

ORLANDO MOORE 

Visalia has uo more prominent citizen along industrial and agri- 
cultural lines than Orlando Moore. The son of Henry C. and Amelia 
(Renalds) Moore, he was born at Venice Hill, Tulare county, Cal., 
March 80, 1869. His father and mother were natives respectively 
of Missouri and Iowa. 

Henry C. Moore came to California in the early '60s, taught 
school in Tulare county and raised sheep, and later he operated one 
of the pioneer sawmills in the mountains which was one of the 
first in this vicinity, hut at length he returned to Missouri. Eight 
years later he came hack to California with a carload of cattle and 
went into the cattle business on a section in the swamp lands of 
Tulare county with R. E. Hyde as a partner. Eventually, however, 
he sold out his interest to Mr. Hyde and went to Puget Sound, 
where he farmed and operated a saw and shingle mill seven years. 
He came again to Tulare county in 1900 and has since lived there. 

In some of the ventures mentioned above, Orlando Moore was 
his father's helper and after a time he engaged extensively in the 
cultivation of watermelons, in one season he receiving $2700 from 
the sale of melons; at the Fourth of July celebration at Visalia in 
190.3 he had seventeen horses and five wagons selling melons through 
the town, he and his brother Edward making a fine disjilay of his 
product with five four-horse teams. Mr. Moore was the pioneer 
orange grower at Venice Cove. Buying twenty acres there, he raised 
the trees from seeds, brought fourteen acres of the fruit to bearing 
and sold out for $14,500. The nursery business also commanded the 
attention of Mr. Moore and his brother for a while. In 1910 he 
sold out his ^'enice Cove property and bought twenty acres near 
the west city limits of Visalia, which he has improved and put on 
the market in half-acre and quarter-acre lots. He owns also a 
mountain ranch of one hundred and sixty acres and one hundred and 
sixty acres near Spa on the Santa Fe, five miles northeast of Alpaugh. 
One of his possessions is a fine auto-truck with a capacity of fifty 
people, and with which he made an experimental run to San Fran- 
cisco with fruit that he took through without bruising or otherwise 
injuring it. He contemplates a like trip with his auto-truck to Port- 
land, Ore., with fi'uit from Tulare county, and it will doubtless at- 
tract much attention to this part of the state. The raising of toma- 
toes has been another experiment of Mr. Moore's which has proved 
noteworthy. He set half an acre to fifteen hundred vines, and sold 
his product as high as ten cents a pound ; for tomatoes grown on five 
acres in a single season he received $1750. 

Mr. Moore's latest venture has been in the field of invention. 
In the year 1912 he took out a ])atent upon a detachable tread for 



380 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

any sized (loul)le-tired autotruck. This invention enables the truck 
to be changed into a tractor for field and farm purposes, and it bids 
fair to become an extremely useful and ]iopular devise. Its advan- 
tages may be listed as follows: Protection to the rubber tire; in- 
crease of tractile power so that it can be used in a field for the 
purposes of plowing or discing and seeding summer fallowed or loose 
sandy land; ]irevention of slipping upon a muddy or sandy road; 
great strength and duralnlity; inexpensive and capable of lasting 
a lifetime; and easily and quickly adjusted. 

Socially Mr. Moore is identified with the Fraternal Brotherhood. 
He and Mrs. Moore are members of the Methodist Episcopal church 
at Visalia. He married, in 1903, Muriel Witherell, a native of Knox- 
ville. 111., and they have three children, Ramon, Ralph Spencer 
and Kathrvn Moore. 



GEORGE W. BAUMANN 

In Iowa George W. Baumann lived until he was five years old, 
and after that he lived in Kansas until 1878, when he came to Visalia, 
Cal. He was born in the Hawkeye State March 10, 1859. February 
9, 1890, he married Miss Martha A. Lathrop, daughter of Ezra 
Lathro]x a California ]iioneer, and she bore him two sons, Grover 
Cleveland and Ezra Gottfried Baumann. A separate biograpliieal 
sketch of Ezra Lathrop appears elsewhere in these pages. 

Soon after Mr. Baumann located at Visalia he began farming, 
but three years later returned to the East, to come back a few months 
later bringing his i)arents. The family located near Farmersville, 
where he operated rented land. Soon after his marriage he home- 
steaded one hundred and sixty acres near Lindsay, where Mr. and 
Mrs. Baumann settled, and at the same time engaged in the stock- 
raising Imsiness in the mountains. Later on he bought three hun- 
dred and twenty acres at Poplar, where they engaged in running a 
good-sized dairy in connection with the farming and stock business. 
In 1906 he rented his farm and moved to Lindsay, whence in the 
following year he moved to Tulare, which was his home as long as 
he lived. His death occurred January 16, 1909. A man of much 
public spirit, he was a helpful friend to every good movement for 
the benefit of the community. Fraternally he affiliated with the Mod- 
ern Woodmen of America and the Ancient Order of United Workmen 
through their local organizations in Tulare. 

Mrs. Baumann is identified with the order of Royal Neighbors, 
is a stockholder in the Tulare National Bank and is extensively en- 
gaged in stockraising on twenty-two hundred acres of land, carrying 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 381 

an average of three Imudred to four hundred head of stock. She was 
one of the pioneers of Tuhu'e City, coming here with her parents 
before eitlier a schoolhouse or a church had been erected here, and 
later for eleven years she taught iu the public schools of Tulare 
county and city. She has a distinct recollection of the digging of 
the first grave, so far as the white i)opulation is concerned, at Tulare, 
when her schoolteacher's wife, Mrs. Haslip, was buried, she being 
the first white person who was laid to rest in the city of Tulare. 
She remembers when religious meetings were held in the waiting 
room of the depot and has a vivid recollection of a Christmas tree, 
gifts from which were distributed in that same room. A woman 
of forceful character and of winning personality, she does much 
good and has many friends. 



ROBERT C. CLARKE 

A native Canadian, Robert C. Clarke, of Tulare, Tulare county, 
Cal., was born in New Brunswick, in quaint old St. John, December 
29, 1829, and when this is written is in his eighty-fourth year. He 
was educated in his native town and there learned the carpenter's 
trade. In 1852 he boarded the shi]) Java, an old whaler, bound for 
San Francisco by way of Cape Horn, imder an arrangement permit- 
ting him to earn his passage. Richly he earned the money he might 
have saved in that way — if he had had it. At Valparaiso he went 
ashore when the cargo, consisting of building materials, was sold, 
to be delivered at Caldera. Finding employment at his trade in 
this latter Chilian port, he earned enough money to pay his fare 
from there to his objective point, but it took him about half a year 
to do it under labor conditions prevailing there at the time; he ar- 
rived at San Francisco in the fall of that year and went almost im- 
mediately to the mines. 

In the diggings at Sonora, Tuolumne county, he labored a short 
time with such indifferent success that when he was offered eight 
dollars a day to work at his trade at Stockton he fairly jum]ied at a 
chance to better his condition. Two years he was employed at Stock- 
ton, then went to Knight's Ferry, Stanislaus county, and resumed 
mining and, not altogether expectedly, met with some little success. 
He constructed an irrigation conduit for running water into his 
claim, and his crude and primitive ditch was the beginning of the ex- 
tensive irrigation system now being completed in that section, down 
through the San Joaquin country. That his |)art in this great work 
may have a historical record it should be said that his work on his 
ditch was begun in the earlv 'oOs. Mining some of the time in .\nui- 



382 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

dor county, as well as at Kuight's Ferry, he made the latter j)lace 
his headquarters for ten years. For a time he was in the mercantile 
business, with James Allen as a partner. Sheep raising on the 
ranges along the' Tuolumne river also commanded his attention tem- 
porarily. It was in 1875 that he came to Tulare county and bought 
one hundred and sixty acres, three miles north of Tipton, where he 
ranched successfully till 1909, when he retired from active life and 
came to Tulare City to pass the years of rest that were before him. 
In the earlier period of his farming he grew grain and alfalfa. Later 
he ran a dairy and had an annual average of tifty acres of alfalfa. 
Alfalfa seed also he made a source of revenue. He bred some tine 
horses, ranging in weight from fourteen hundred to eighteen hun- 
dred pounds. 

Tulare City Lodge No. 32fi includes Mr. Clarke in its memlier- 
ship. He married, in 1887, Mrs. Elizabeth Johnson, a native of 
Pennsylvania, and they liave children named Nettie A. and Eoberta 
C. Samuel Sampson, Mrs. Clarke's father, was born in Ireland and 
eventually made the United States his adopted country. Twice he 
came to California by way of the Istlimus of Panama, first in 1851. 
He mined for gold in Tuolumne county and went back to Pennsyl- 
vania, whence he had come, in the late '50s. There he spent the 
declining years of his life and passed to his reward. His wife was, 
before her marriage, Miss McKewon. In 1859 she and Mrs. Clarke, 
her only child, came to California by way of the isthmus and estab- 
lished a home in Stanislaus county, where Mrs. Clarke grew to wom- 
anhood and was married. 



WINFIELD SCOTT BLOYD 

In Colchester, McDonough county. 111., Winfield Scott Bloyd. now 
a prominent business man of Hanford, Kings county, Cal., was born 
November 18, 1858, son of W. Washington Bloyd, of whom a sketch 
appears elsewhere in this publication. In 1861 his parents bi'ought 
him across the plains to California and settled in Tehama county, 
removing from there to the San Joacpiin valley, and in 1871 located in 
Kings county. Here they made their home until after the Mussel 
Slough fight, when they turned their faces toward the Northwest and 
for a year and a half resided in Oregon. Then they returned to Cali- 
fornia and bought a ranch at Summit Lake, in Fresno county, which 
they operated two years and sold out, in 1892 coming to Grangeville, 
Kings county, where they began raising fruit. 

In 1905 Mr. Bloyd came from the ranch to Hanford, and he has 
since made his home in tliat citv. For three vears he bought and sold 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 383 

hay and lie and liis brother Levi are now contractors of cement work, 
doing an increasing volume of business, which requires the investment 
of considerable capital and the enij)loyment from time to time of a 
number of skilled workmen. In different parts of the city are to be 
seen evidences of their handicraft and enterprise. 

Mr. Bloyd affiliates with the Fraternal Aid and the Woodmen of 
the World. As a citizen he is public-spirited and helpful to all the 
interests of the community and in political principle is Eepublican. In 
1881 he married Miss Louisa Samuels, a native of California, wlio died 
in 1900. In 1902 he married Mrs. E. P]dd.y. He has two daughters, 
Mrs. John Bassett and Miss Ruby Bloyd. 



WILLIAM HENRY THAYER 

That old and reliable dairyman, William Henry Thayer, of Cor- 
coran, Kings county, Cal., is a native of Dunkirk, Chautauqua county, 
N. Y., and was born November 15, 1834. He was brought up to farm- 
ing and to country work of various kinds and educated in such public 
schools as were available to him in his childhood and boyhood. He 
came to California in 1863, and engaged in farming and the breeding 
of horses, cattle and hogs, a business which he has since made his life 
work. From time to time as his means has permitted he has bought 
tracts of land, his first venture in the acquirement of land in Kings 
conuty I)eing in 1881, when he took up three hundred and twenty acres 
in the Dallas district, as swamp and overflow lands, and this he has 
successfully reclaimed. In the dyking of this land Mr. Thayer found 
the skeletons of several human beings, evidently the i-emains of de- 
ceased warriors who had engaged the Mexicans. On Mill creek, in Tu- 
lare county, he also acquired a hundred and sixty acres, which he has 
deeded to his children, and later in 1900 he bought the hundred and 
sixty acre tract on which he now lives, situated one mile east of Cor- 
coran. He operates three hundred and twenty acres which is included 
in his dairy plant. His homestead is a fine large property, with good 
buildings of all kinds, including a residence which has many modern 
inqn-ovements. His cattle are of good breeds, as tine specimens as 
can l)e produced, and he has become known in his market for the 
excellence and purity of his products, which find ready sale wherever 
they have been introduced. 

By his marriage, which was celebrated April 18, 1877, Mr. Thayer 
identified his fortunes with those of Miss Sarah M. Austin, who was 
born at Sacramento. Cal., March 27, 1863. Mrs. Thayer has Iiorne 
her husband the following children, who will be found mentioned here 
in the order of their nativity: Arthur Y., Enos E., Lillie, Henry, 
Jennie, Cora, Clarence, Mabel and Lester. 



384 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Of progressive ideas and i^atriotic impulses, Mr. Thayer is a 
model citizen, who performs his whole duty as such in society and at 
the polls. While he is not an active ))olitician in the ordinary sense 
of the phrase, he takes a lively and helpful interest in all questions of 
public policy and has never been known to withhold his encouragement 
from any measure which in his opinion has promised to bring better 
things to the lives of any considerable number of his fellow citizens. 



CHARLES W. TOMPKINS 

As secretary and treasurer of the Tulare County Beekeepers' 
Association, Charles W. Tompkins is most prominent in that industry. 
He is the son of Caleb and Lavonia (Saxby) Tompkins. His father 
was born in Canada, his mother in Wisconsin; the former died Sep- 
tember 11, 1908, the latter August 19, 1879. Caleb Tomi^kins came 
to California and settled at Tulare in 1882 and found work at his 
trade, which was that of the carpenter, and was elected constable 
and served for some eight years as a night watchman. He was a 
man of great decision of character, brave to a fault, and was very 
efficient as a peace officer. Following are the names of his children 
who survive at this time: Charles W., who is mentioned below; 
Benjamin W., who married Gussie Woodard and has four children 
living at Corte Madera, Marin county, Cal. ; Ida, who married Jesse 
Halla and has two children; and Fred, who married Margaret Frary 
and has two children. 

Charles W. Tompkins was born at Iowa Falls, Hardin county, la., 
February 14, 1868. A quarter part of his boyhood was S]ient at 
Atchison, Kan., and he acquired a practical knowledge of the car- 
penter's trade in Tulare and was for seven years a railroad carpenter 
in the employ of the Southern Pacific Railroad Company, in charge of 
a crew of men who worked wherever their services were required 
along the road from Mendota to Los Angeles, also on the Santa Bar- 
bara branch from Saugus to Santa Barbara. He assisted in the con- 
struction of many residences at and near Tulare, among them those 
of B. A. Fanner, A. E. Miot, ^h: Wheeler, William Muller, Mrs. 
Thomas Thompson, James Halanau and C. S. Nicewonger. He helped 
also to build the Crow block and other business buildings. His spe- 
cialty in all this work was in putting in fine interior finish, in which 
he is recognized as an expert. 

In 1894 Mr. Tompkins engaged in the bee business and soon be- 
came an expert apiarist. Pie took swarms of bees from trees and in 
one instance cut down thirty trees to obtain one swarm. All his spare 
time he devoted to the study of books and journals giving instruction 
in different phases of bee culture. In time he had acquired three 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 385 

hundred and fifty swarms of bees and he is the owner of many at 
the present time. His apiaries, each consisting of sixty hives, are 
distributed in different favorable sections of the county and are 
moved from place to place, according to season. He is at present 
secretary and treasurer of tlie Tulare County Beekeepers' Association. 
In the spring of the year he places his bees over near the mountains, in 
the orange section, in order tliat they may gather honey from the 
orange blossoms, the honey thus produced being sweet, clear and pure 
and of an extra quality. In this section of Tulare county the bee busi- 
ness is rapidly growing; eleven carloads of honey were shijiped from 
Tulare in 1911 and six carloads in 1912, which was a rather unfavor- 
able season on account of the prevailing drought. In this industry 
Mr. Tompkins is one of the leaders. He possesses jtublic spirit to 
such a degree that he is a most useful citizen, always to be depended 
upon in emergencies calling for activity in behalf of the general good. 
He is identified with Tulare City lodge. Independent Order of Odd 
Fellows, and with the local organization of the Independent Order of 
Foresters. 

In 1899 Mr. Tompkins married Nina L. Reams, a native of 
Tennessee, and she has borne him sons named Charles A. and Win- 
fred W. 



FRANK POWELL 

The people of Lemoore have many times been congratulated on 
having such a genial and efficient postmaster as Frank Powell, who has 
held the office continuously since his first appointment by President 
Harrison. Mr. Powell is a native of Sacramento, Cal., born March 22, 
1867, a son of P. M. Powell. He was brought u]i at P>righton, near 
Sacramento, and came to the vicinity of Lemoore with his parents in 
1873, when he was about six years old. The elder Powell turned his 
attention to farming and the boy became a student in the Tjcmoore 
public school and later was graduated from the liigh school at Tulare. 

The first postal work done by Mr. Powell was in the Tulare 
jiostoffice, where he was for two years a dejnity under Postmaster 
M. D. Witt. Usually postmasters are appointed chiefly for political 
reasons, but Mr. Powell was called to the postmastership of Lemoore 
because he was experienced in the work that the postoffice demanded 
and could adapt himself to the situation more easily and become an 
efficient postmaster with gi-eater facility than any other man in 
town. He was first apiiointed under the Harrison administrntion 
and he has since been five times reappointed. His management of 
the office has put it on a l)usiness plane considerably higher than 
that usually occupied by postoffices of towns of about the jxipulation 



386 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

of Lemoore. So far as he has l)een able he has brought the estab- 
lishment to a systein resembliug in some ways tliat which obtains 
ill cities of eimsiderable importance. 

Eight miles from Lemoore, in the midst of the Empire district, 
is a fine rancli owned by Mr. Powell, which he devote.s to the cultiva- 
tion of alfalfa and the raising of tine hogs. Politically he is a Re-. 
publican and socially he is a Woodman of the World. As a citizen 
his public spirit is equal to all demands which tend toward municipal 
welfare. lie married, in 1898, Miss Belle Adams of Kings county, 
and thev have a daughter whom thev have named Ella. 



ARTHUR SWALL 

A prominent citizen of Tulare coimty, genial and whole-souled, 
who has since 1910 been manager of the Newman ranch, which is 
located eleven miles south of the city mentioned, is Arthur Swall. 
This property, which consists of thirty-four hundred acres, was bought 
in 1909 by J. B. Newman of Santa Monica, Cal. The principal busi- 
ness of the ranch is dairying and stock-raising; one hundred and 
twenty cows are milked, and about two hundred and fifty hogs are 
fed. One hundred and fifty acres of the ranch are devoted to alfalfa 
and before the expiration of two years seven hundred acres will be 
given over to that crop. Three hundred acres are farmed to grain 
and five hundred head of cattle are kept. There are on the ranch 
two thirty-horse power motors to provide water, one two-horse 
power and one one-horse power motor to o]>erate cream separators, 
and other small motors for |)umi)ing water for domestic use and for 
the cold storage plant, ice being manufactured on the place. The ranch 
is irrigated from Tule river by an eight-mile ditch, a motor being 
used to raise water thirty-five feet from wells. The buildings on 
the property are modern, including two barns for sixtj'-two cows 
and one large horse stable. The bunk-house for the men cost $3000 
and the concrete cream house $1800, and the buildings to house 
machinery and the sheds to protect vehicles are ample and up-to- 
date. One of the most notable of the buildings is the manager's 
residence, which is outfitted with all modern improvements. The 
entire place is lighted by electricity. Twelve to fifteen men and 
thirty-two horses are kept busy on the ranch the year round. The 
cream from the dairy is sent to a creamery. 

The nucleus of this ranch was one hundred and sixty acres of 
land homesteaded by William Swall, father of Arthur. The latter 
was born on the place and grew to manhood on his father's liome- 
stead north of Tulare. From his liovhood he had been familiar 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIP^S .m» 

with all the details of ranch life and enterprise, his first venture 
being in partnership with his father in the rental for a year of 
orchard land near Visalia. Then he bought forty acres four miles 
southwest of that city, on which he began farming and set out twenty 
acres of peach trees and devoted ten acres to alfalfa, giving the rest 
of the place over to pasturage. He made many improvements on 
the ranch and in 1!)K) leased it to his brother-in-law on shares, in 
order to accept his present position with Mr. Newman. He is a 
stockholder in the Rochdale store at Tulare and Mr. Newman is a 
stockholder in the Dairyiimn's Co-operative creamery, the headquar- 
ters of which is in that city. 

Tn 1809 Mr. Swall married Miss Maud Gum, of Ilanford, Cal., 
and they have three cliildren: Victor, at this time (1913), eleven 
years old; Harold, five years old; and Richard, an infant. Frater- 
nally Mr. Swall affiliates with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows 
of Tulare, being identified with lodge, encampment and the auxiliary 
organization of Rebekahs, and he also holds membership in a local 
division of the Fraternal Brotherhood. As a citizen he is public- 
spirited to a degree that makes him helpful to all local interests. 



HUGH L. HAMILTON 

One of the sturdy characters in the business life of Exeter is 
Hugh L. Hamilton, a blacksmith there. Born in 1861, in Mississippi 
county. Ark., he was a son of Andrew Hamilton, a native of Ireland. 
His mother died when he was three years old and he was only in his 
eighth year when his father passed away. About a year after his 
second bereavement, he went with his grandfather and the latter 's 
family to Missouri, where he remained three years. In 1872 he was 
brought to Tulare county, Cal., and his education, begun in Missouri, 
was continued in the ])ublic schools here. He was taken into the family 
of his uncle, Hugh Hamilton, for whom he was named. In his early 
life he worked at stock-i-aisi)ig and later for a considerable time gave 
his attention to both that and grain farming, meanwhile learning the 
blacksmith's trade and devoting himself to it as occasion offered. 
Eventually he turned his attention entirely to blacksmithing, and his 
shop in p]xeter is one of the leading concerns of its kind in that part 
of the county. 

When Mr. Hamilton came to Tulare county there were few settlers 
in the vicinity of Exeter and the whole country round about was new 
and undeveloi)ed. Stock-raising and grain-growing were the princi))al 
interests for many years. His uncle had one of the big stock ranches 
of the time and locality, and he gave his nephew a fail- start in life. 



390 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

At one time Mr. Hamilton owned five hundred and ninety acres of 
land and did well as a farmer, but his inclination made him a follower 
of his chosen trade. 

In 1884 Mr. Hamilton united his fortunes with those of Miss 
Mildred Ferril, a native of Missouri, who bore him six children, five 
of whom are living. She died in 1895, and in 1897 he married Ida 
May Butts, a native of California. By his second marriage he has 
had two children, one of whom is deceased. The other, Harvey W. 
Hamilton, is a student in the Exeter high school. In his political 
affiliations Mr. Hamilton is a Democrat. He is identified with the 
Knights of Pythias and the Woodmen of the World and is a loyal 
citizen, for no worthy interest of the conmiunity is without his en- 
couragement. 



LIONEL W. MARSHALL 

Another lowan who is succeeding in Tulare county, Cal., is 
Lionel W. Marshall, of Tulare. Mr. Marshall was born in Marshall 
county, in the central part of Iowa, January 10, 1857. When he was 
fifteen years old he was taken to Yankton, S. Dak., by his parents, 
who maintained the family home there two years, then, in 1874, came 
to California, locating in Los Angeles. The elder Marshall was a 
builder, and the son gained a practical knowledge of the carpenter's 
trade under his instruction. He, in an earlier day, had acquired 
similar experience in England, where he first saw the light of day. 
From Los Angeles father and son went to Pomona, where they 
erected the first Iniilding in the town, which, as it happened, was a 
hotel. They were kept busy there, contracting and building, three 
years, then went back to Los Angeles. Soon Lionel W. Marshall 
ijuilt homes in Tulare for Thomas H. Thompson and Banker Lathro]). 
He remained in the town during the period 1907-08 and moved to 
Lindsay, where he built himself a fine home and fine residences for 
James Reynolds, Edward Halleck, John Walker and Messrs. Metcalf 
and Evans. He also remodeled the building of the National Bank 
of Lindsay, and while he was operating there went over to Visalia 
and built residences for A. W. Wing and James Richardson. He 
took up his residence in Tulare in September, 1911, and soon after- 
ward erected the H. A. Charters home in that city. Even the most 
fleeting inspection of the structures he has erected conveys an idea 
of their artistic design, workmanlike construction and solid per- 
manency. They are ornaments to the towns in which they stand and 
the best possible advertisement of liis skill and ability. Some of his 
recent architectural achievements are in evidence and he has in band 



TULARE AND KINGS CbUNTIES 391 

contracts for execution in the near future which cannot but add to 
his laurels. 

In 1906 Mr. Marshall married Miss Elizabeth Parker, a daughter 
of Andrew Parker, a pioneer at Monrovia. He is a member of the 
Visalia body of the ordei- of Moose. In the affairs of the community 
he is interested and helpful. 



GIDEON LORENDO 

In the province of Quebec, Canada, forty-nine miles west of the 
city of the same name, Gideon Lorendo was born, September 17, 1846, 
a son of Cyril and Locadie (Deleours) Lorendo, natives of Canada. 
His father, who was a farmer, held the office of sheriff more than 
forty years. When Gideon left his native province he went to Lowell, 
Mass., and found employment in a cotton mill. Later he worked in .i 
sawmill, then for five years he traveled throughout New England, then 
went west by way of the Great Lakes and in 1869 stopped at Duhith, 
Minn. There were at that time only five cabins in the place and they 
were occupied by half-breed Indians. He found there employment con- 
nected with lumbering, but soon went back to the province of Quebec 
where he married Jane L. Bounty, a native of Vermont, who became 
the mother of his eight childi'en: Minnie, Napoleon, Ellen, Philip, 
Louisa, Alfred, Albert and Josephine. His second marriage was to 
Elizabeth Euch, a native of Oregon. Their children are named Wil- 
liam, Peter and Agnes. Agnes is attending school at Orosi. Napoleon 
married Jessie Woods, and resides in Oakland, Cal., and has two 
children. Ellen married John Fisher of Mariposa county, Cal., and 
has five daughters. Philip married Lulu Beggs ; their home is in Mono 
covmty and they have two children. Alfred married Ethel Griggs and 
they live at San Francisco. Albert, who is an engineer on the rail- 
road belonging to the mill company at Sugarpine, Cal., married Pearl 
Uslis and they have a son and a daughter. Josephine married Ira 
Thomas; they live at llanford and have two children. Mr. Lorendo 
has thirteen grandchildren. 

From Windsor, Canada, across the river from Detroit, Mr. 
Lorendo came to Califoi'nia in 1877. In 1881, liecause of the dry sea- 
son, he sold one hundred and sixty acres of land for $500. Soon after, 
he bought another one hundred and sixty acres at Sand Creek Gaj) for 
$L'..")0 an acre and in 1888 sold it for $24 an acre and went to Oregon 
and lived in Josephine county, tliat state, for six years, farming for a 
time, then mining for gold. As he was spending more money than lie 
was netting out of the grcnind, he disposed of his holdings in Oregon 
and sold a place near Chamberlain, S. Dak., which he had owned for 



392 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

some time, for $25, and went to British Columbia and kept a tavern on 
the Caribou road until he had taken in from lodgers enough to give 
him another start. Then he came back to Orosi and sent for his wife. 
He then had but $2.50 to his name and faced the certainty of having 
to ])ay out the first $200 that he could earn over and above a bare 
living. But he struggled manfully for a foothold, and in 1901 bought 
twenty acres of land at $25 an acre. This lie has improved with a 
house, a barn and other buildings. He has nine and a half acres in 
Malaga grapes, eight acres in jieaches and two acres in alfalfa. He 
has paid for his land and improvements, has ]jleuty of stock for home 
use, and is prospering in the regular California way. Politically he is 
a Socialist and he and the other members of his family are members 
of the Catholic church, in which they were all born and brought up. 

Before settling down in Tulare county Mr. Lorendo travelled 
through twenty-seven states, trying to find the best location possible, 
and is very much pleased with California. He was twenty-six mile> 
from their postoffice at Visalia when he first settled here. 



T. W. KYLE 



To California, Indiana has given many citizens who have be- 
come prominent in one relation or another. The ranks of the builders 
of different classes include many of them. Of the builders of Tulare 
county few are more deservedly po]iular than the sou of the Hoosier 
State whose name is above. It was in Jennings county that Mr. Kyle 
was born, 1853. He came to California first in 1879, remained a year 
and went to Texas, where he worked as a brick mason. In 1889 he 
came back, and settling in Tulare, began there a successful career as 
a brick contractor and builder. In nearly all parts of the county may 
be seen fine brick structures which are monuments to his skill and en- 
terprise, and among them the following are conspicuous: At 
Tulare — the I. H. Ham block, the W. Clough block, the new high school 
building, the Carnegie Library building, the city hall ; at Visalia — the 
George Ballon block, the county jail, the HerroU block, the Delta build- 
ing, the Lncier block, the Baptist church; at Porterville — the Sartou 
block, the flour mill, the Henry Traga building, the remodeled First 
National Bank building; at lianford — the Biddle Bank building; at 
Tipton — a hotel; at Traver — a hotel; at Dinuba — the Hayden & Boone 
block; and many other lesser buildings for different purposes. He 
has built also some fine blocks in Bakersfield, Kern county. 

As he becomes better and more widely known his business in- 
creases rapidly. It is already one of the most considerable of its 
class in this part of the state and bids fair within the next few years 




:^^ ^ . /^ c=.^..<j^ 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 395 

to outrauk all coiiiiictitors. His busiuess methods are such as to com- 
meud him to all requiring such service as he is so well able to render; 
he has amjile capital and backing and may be dei)ended on faithfully 
to carry out any contract he may make, however large or difficult. 

In 1891 Mr. Kyle married Miss Florence Owens, a native of Ala- 
l)ama, and she has Jiorne him children whom they have named Alvin 
J., Forrest and Kuth. 



LUTHER C. HAWLEY 

In Trumbull county, Ohio, within the Western Reserve, Luther 
C. Hawley was born May 4, 1829, and when he was six years old his 
father, who was a farmer, removed to Bond county, Illinois, where 
the boy gained some schooling and a knowledge of farming. In 
1851, when he was twenty-two years old, he with two partners 
traveled with a four horse team to Oregon City, Ore., being five 
months on the road. He went to Salem, Ore., and from there to 
Eugene, Lane county, where he was among the first settlers, and 
shortly after became first clerk of that county. In 1855 he helped 
to organize and enlisted in the Mounted Volunteers and was made 
first lieutenant, serving as such in the Indian service from October 
to January. His term having expired he with others organized 
another company and he was appointed chief of the staff, with rank 
of major, under General Lamerick. He served as such until the war 
was over and later was a clerk in the Governor's office at Salem 
and helped in the settlement of local war and Indian affairs until 
1857. Desiiing to again see his mother he returned east by way of 
the Isthmus of Panama, and the Panama railroad was the first rail- 
road he had ever seen. Remaining in Illinois until in the spring of 
1859, he then started across the plains to Colorado, with a determina- 
tion to reach Pike's Peak. He was captain of a train of fifty-three 
wagons, and his party located on the present site of Denver, where 
there was then but one house, this being a double log cabin. He did 
placer mining in Russell's Gulch, then returned East with a mule 
team to Illinois. He practiced law at Greeu\'ille, Bond county, 111., 
until in 1862, when he enlisted in the One Hundred and Thirtieth 
Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry, with which he served as 
sergeant nuijor unlil the end of the' war, participating in the siege 
of Vicksburg forty-seven days, also in the fighting at Champion Hill 
and Fort Gibson. Tie remained at Vickslnirg, in McPherson's com- 
mand, until February, 1864, and fought under that general at Tom- 
bigbee river and at Jackson, Miss. In June he marched toward 
Lookout Mountain, Mission Ridge and Chickamauga, and after 



396 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

participating' in the fightiug at those points went to Atlanta, where 
General MoPherson was killed. Mr. Hawley was then acting as 
assistant adjiitaut-general ; after the death of General MePherson 
he was transferred to General C'anby's headquarters at New Orleans, 
ranking as captain. He was present at the capture of Mobile, whence 
he returned to New Orleans, and remained there until the close of 
the war, being mustered out November, 1865. 

After tlie war Mr. UawIey went back to Illinois and resumed the 
practice of law at ^^andalia, where he married and lived until 1870, 
when he came to California, bringing his family with him. He lived 
in the Sacramento valley, raising wheat imtil 187-1, then came to 
Tulare county. The country round about was a naked plain and one 
could scarcely see a house in half a day of fast riding. Mr. Hawley 
bought a quarter-section of railroad land near the present site of 
Hanford on the south, and for a time he prospered with wjieat and 
stock, later putting his land into fruit trees. He lived on his jilacc 
until 1905, when he rented it and liought a residence in Hanford, and 
since his removal to the city he has sold the ranch. He was a 
participant in the Mussel Slough tragedy and was a member of a 
conuuittee sent to San Francisco to deal with the railroad company. 
He and his associates were put in prison there but were released the 
next day. In the later development of this section he has been active in 
the promotion of irrigation, and in all relations with his fellow 
citizens has been helpfully public spirited. He keeps alive memories 
of 1861-65 by membership with MePherson Post, G. A. R., of Hanford. 

In 1865 Mr. Hawley married Alice M. Stevenson, a native of 
Kentucky. Two of their eight children were born in Illinois, the 
others being natives of California. . Their son Charles Eichard 
became a lawyer, but has passed away. Samuel Vincent is a farmer 
located a mile and a half from Hanford. Clarence E. is a rig-builder 
in the oil fields at Maricopa, Cal. Lulu J. is the wife of John H. 
Van Vlear, of Hanford. Ralph S.. of Berkeley, is a civil engineer. 
Edgar L. is deceased. A'ictor C. and Claude were twins. Victor is 
a plumber at Hanford; Claude is deceased. Mrs. Hawley passed 
awav in 1902, aged sixty-two years. 



BYRON O. LOVELACE 

The ])ul)lic ollicials of a county furnish to the outside world the 
best expression of the character of its people and indicate not only 
its present state of development, but also its trend and its aspira- 
tions. Tried by this standard, Tulare county commands the respect 
and confidence of all inquirers l)y reason of the representative char- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 397 

acter of tlie men wlio are filling its official positions, and among them 
none is worthy of higher respect for capacity and devotion to the 
interests confided to his charge than Byron O. Lovelace, who lias 
ably and houoral)!y filled the office of county surveyor since Jan- 
uary 1, 1911. 

A son of Josejjh W. and Helen (Sehlichting) Lovelace, Byron 
0. Lovelace was born in Texas in 1883. He was educated in the 
public school at Visalia and was graduated after a special course 
of scientific study from the Van der Naillen School of Engineering 
and Mines of San Francisco. During the ensuing six years lie was 
in the employ of the United States government, doing surveying 
for the agricultural department, most of the time in National Forest 
Reserve work in California and Nevada. Returning to Visalia in 
1910, he was a candidate as a Republican at the August primary elec- 
tion for the office of county surveyor of Tulare county, to which he 
was duly elected by a large ma,]ority in the fall of that year. 

As a man of piiblic spirit Mr. Lovelace takes high place in the 
citizenship of Tulare county, to the important general interests of 
which he has been cons]ncuoush^ devoted. Fraternally he affiliates 
with the Woodmen of the World. He married, July, 1910, Miss 
Eula Simmons, a native of Riverside county, C-al., and a daughter 
of a pioneer stockman in that part of the state. 



PERRY DORMAN FOWLER 

As horticultural commissioner for Tulare county, Perry Dor- 
man Fowler is proving excellent ability. His splendid life dates 
from March 1, 1851, when he was born in the state of Missouri, a 
son of Benjamin and Mary Ajin (Thompson) Fowler, natives re- 
siieetively of Indiana and of Missouri. In 1854, when he was about 
three years old, his jiarents accompanied an ox-team immigratinn 
party to California, bringing their family, and the father mined for 
a time near Oroville, but moved from there to the San Ramon 
valley and farmed there until in the fall of 1858. From tliat time 
until in 1868 he farmed near Woodland, Yolo county, and there 
Perry D. attended the public schools and was a student in the Hes- 
perian College. The next home of the family was near the present 
site of Newman in Stanislaus coimty, where the elder Fowler bought 
three thousand acres of land, raised stock and grew grain until in 
1874. After that he herded sheep and farmed in the Deer Creek 
region of Tulare county unlil February 20, 187(5, when he passed 
away. The son settled the family estate and in the fall of that year 
Mrs. Fowler moved to Tulare, which was her home as long as she 



398 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

lived, her death, however, occurring iu Los Angeles in September, 
1895. 

Until 1881 Perry Dorman Fowler farmed and raised sheep. 
Then he began buying grain for G. W. McNear and selling farm 
machinery for Baker & Hamilton of San Francisco. In the period 
1887-1900 he operated the Fowler farm. In 1900 he was appointed 
horticultural couuiiissiouer for Tulare county and to the work of 
that office he has since devoted liimself. He has a farm of seventy- 
one acres, five miles from Tulare, which is leased by his son-in-law. 
Thirty acres of it is in orchard and thirty acres in alfalfa. 

On September 9, 1879, Mr. Fowler married Jeanette Josephine 
Hawkins, who was born at Suisun, Solano county, Cal., February 
1, 1857, and died May 12, 1910. She was a daughter of Vardiman 
Hawkins, of Elmira, Solano county, a pioneer in that part of the 
state. She bore her husband two children, Jeanette May, December 
10, 1880, and J. Benjamin, July 19, 1882. The daughter is the wife 
of J. B. Southwell of Tulare county. The son, who is farming on 
the Lindsay road, seven miles east of Tulare, married Mrs. Annie 
Smith, and they have two sons, Eoy Benjamin and Perry Daniel 
Fowler. 

By the board of directors of the Tulare irrigation district. Mr. 
Fowler was appointed to assess property to raise revenue with which 
to pay off the bonded indebtedness of the district to settlers, -is 
provided in the compromise with the bondholders in 1883. He is a 
member of the Mutual Farmers' Insurance Company, and being a 
man of much public spirit has been identified from time to time 
with other interests of importance to the community. He is a mem- 
ber of the First Christian church of Tulare. 



EDWARD H. CHANCE 

One of the extensive agriculturists of his coimty, who has been 
closely identified with its development for many years is Edward 
H. Chance, who now lives near Sultana in Tulare county. He was born 
near Versailles, lud., March 24, 1860, .a son of Henry and Louisa 
(Nuckles) Chance, and has not seen bis mother since he was four 
years old. His father was a pioneer in Oregon, living for a time 
in Cottage Grove. There Edward H. went in 1887, having spent 
his life in Indiana and Kentucky until that time. He was employed 
at logging and lumbering nine years in that part of Oregon, then 
came to Fresno county, Cal., where he remained one year before settling 
in Tulare county. 

Soon after his arrival iu this countv Mr. Chance bought fortv 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 401 

acres of the Bump tract, i>ayins- $800 for twenty acres and $:^5 an 
acre for the other twenty. He has tive acres planted to a peach 
orchard, fourteen acres under alfalfa and a good acreage of corn. He 
keeps seven head of stock and a few hogs, and has gradually imj^roved 
his ranch from a wheat field until it is one of the best in the neighbor- 
hood. By bringing it to a high state of cultivation he is securing 
crops which do not suffer by comparison with any others of their 
respective kinds raised in the vicinity of Sultana. As a progressive 
farmer and citizen he enjoys a higii reimtation. His public spirit 
impels him to lielp all movements for the benefit of his community to 
the extent of his ability. In politics he is a Republican but has 
never sought office. While living in Oregon he was road supervisor 
for two years in Crawfordsville, and deputy constable in the Sultana 
district. Fraternally he atliliates with the Modern Woodmen of 
America, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Beavers. 

In Indiana, March 24, 1883, Mr. Chance married Miss Martha 
Carson, who was born sixty miles north of Indianapolis, and they 
have four children living, Percy E., Lester Carl, Eddie Frank, and 
Bruce Allen. Pearl, the only daughter, is deceased. Percy married 
Mollie Ramsey; later he married Sadie Carter and they have a child 
and are living in Benton county, Oregon. 



DANIEL KINDLE ZUMWALT 

A descendant of an old Mrginia family, Daniel Kindle Zumwalt 
was born near Joliet, 111., January 24, 1845, of German extraction, 
his first American ancestor, George (or Adam) Zumwalt, having emi- 
grated from the Fatherland in the eighteenth century, to become a 
settler in Virginia and later a pioneer in Ohio, which was then on the 
fringe of ciA'ilization. Jacob Zumwalt, son of the emigrant, went, in 
January, 1880, from Adams county, 0., to Hancock county, Ind., where 
he died December, 1883, Jacob, his son, was 1)orn in Ohio, September 
15, 1807. He married, June 24, 1830, Susanna Kindle Smith, born in 
Ohio, June 12, 1811. With his father, his three brothers and his five 
sisters, he went to Hancock county, Ind., in 1830, and four years later 
he went to Will county. III., aliout ten miles from Joliet. There he 
remained twenty years, until March, 1854, when he started with ox- 
teams overland for California. He farmed in the Sacramento valley 
until 1872, when he came to his farm near Visalia, Tulare county, where 
he died May 31, 1878. His wife died in Sacramento November 20, 
1896, and they are both buried there. He was a Methodist and in many 
ways evinced great jniblic spirit. His wife bore him children as fol- 
lows: Nancy (Mrs. Rockwell Hunt), who died in Sacramento in 1!)04; 



402 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIP]S 

Sarah M. (Mrs. James Shoemaker), of Santa Clara; Joseph, l)oru 
April 30, 1836, who died in Kern county, August 1, 1878; John H., of 
San Jose, Cal.; Elizabeth (Mrs. Hawk), of Sacramento; Daniel Kindle, 
of this review. 

When his father came to California, Daniel Kindle Zumwalt and 
other members of their family came along, and Daniel rode horseback 
and helped to drive the oxen. He was only nine and his youth ex- 
empted him from guard duty, but every other duty that fell to the lot 
of his elders was performed by him at one time or another. He 
attended the jiublic and high schools of Sacramento, and was graduated 
in 1865, later taking the degrees of A.M. and A.B. at the University 
of the Pacific. Having been awarded a first-grade teacher's certificate, 
he taught school a year at Yolo, then came, in 18(59, to Tulare county, 
where he lived out his allotted days. For twenty-three years he was 
land agent and attorney for the Southern Pacific Railroad company, 
his territory including Tulare. Kern and Fresno and what is now 
Kings county. He was one of the originators and organizers of the 
76 Land and Water company, most of the capital for which he per- 
sonally secured. Preparatory to the formation of the company Mr. 
Zumwalt bought the water rights of Risley & Cameron and others 
and secured options on large tracts of land. As secretary of the 
company he promoted its interests until its principal office was moved 
from Visalia to Traver. He was a prime factor and a stockholder of 
the Kaweah Canal and Irrigation Co. and was influential in the pre- 
vention of'the diversion of the water from the settlers. In the course 
of his busy life he improved and developed lands of his own, and his 
estate owns a fine farm Ijetween Visalia and Tulare, which is devoted 
to dairying and the raising of Shorthorn cattle; in the improvement 
and equipment of this property he established a creamery. He was 
instrumental, also, in tlie setting up of another at Visalia. 

In the construction of other canals than those mentioned above 
Mr. Zumwalt was active. With others, he was indefatigable in pre- 
senting proofs to tlie Interior Department, at Washington. D. C, of 
the necessity for the preservation of the redwood forests for future 
generations. It was lie who enlisted the co-operation of Congressman 
Vandever of California, who secured the passage of an authorization 
of the setting aside of General Grant Park, which insures the preser- 
vation of the giant redwoods, there more numerous than in any other 
part of the Sierras. 

At Tulare, May 20, 1890, Mr. Zumwalt married Emma F. Black- 
wedel, a native of Taycheedah, Wis. J. Henry Blackwedel, her father, 
born in Hemsliiig, Hanover, Germany, was a son of -John Blackwedel. 
who brought his family to the United States in 1847 and settled on a 
farm in Wisconsin, whence they moved later to Jo Daviess county. TU. 
John Henrv Blackwedel was a farmer in Wisconsin and later a mer- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 40;5 

chant in Sauk City, Wis., and Galena, III., and later l)ecanie a resident 
of Dubuque, Iowa, in which city he passed away November 29, 1863. 
Of literary tastes and education, he entertained writers and lecturers 
who visited him wherever he lived. He deserves a place in history as 
one of the sponsors of the Republican party. His wife, formerly Anna 
Meta Holterman, was born in Germany, a daughter of H. C. Holter- 
man, who jived out his days there. She died in Dubuque, Iowa, in 
1872. Two of their children lived to maturity, Mrs. Zumwalt and Mrs. 
Minnie Pillsbury. Of a former marriage two sons, Henry Herman and 
John Frederick, died in service, while members of Company I, Seven- 
teenth Missouri Volunteer Infantry. Mrs. Zumwalt, next to the young- 
est, was reared and educated in Dubuque, came to Riverside in 1886 
with her sister, Mrs. Pillsbury, and in 1887 came to Tulare county. 
She is a helpful member of the Methodist church and does nun-h for 
Visalia Lodge No. 48, Independent Order of Good Templars, with 
which she has lieeu identified since its organization by her late hus- 
band November 18, 1870. He was foremost in incorporating the Good 
Templars' Hall Association and in l)uilding the Good Templars Hall at 
Visalia and in so safeguarding it that it cannot be diverted from its 
intended use or pass from the control of the society. He was Grand 
Councilor of the order and for many years one of its most devoted and 
liberal supjiorters. He was a member and a trustee of the Methodist 
church of Visalia and in 1869-70 organized its Sunday school, of which 
he was long superintendent. Politically, he was in early life a Repub- 
lican, in later years a Prohibitionist. His opinions on the liquor ques- 
tion are shared by Mrs. Zumwalt, who, as an ardent woman suffragist, 
has seen nuich in which to rejoice in these later days of awakening 
and of regeneration in matters political. She was a valued assistant to 
Mr. Zumwalt, standing l)eside him in all trials and enc'ouraging him 
with her devoted wifely love. Their union was a very happy one, and 
at home, in church work or in lodge work their interests were mutual 
Mr. Zumwalt 's death occurred November 2, 1904. 

The town of Traver, Tulare county, was laid out through Mr. 
Zumwalt 's instrumentality. So versatile was he that he carried on an 
a])stract and land business, gave attention to stock-raising and dairy- 
ing, patented a process for ])hotographing and preserving record?, 
and did many other odd and interesting things not directly connected 
with his chief pursuits. "With tiie instincts of a true business woman, 
Mrs. Zumwalt personally attends to business connected with her sev- 
eral ranches. She has a dairy ranch of twelve hundi'cd acres near 
Tulare City. On her Deer Creek ranch of thirty-three iiundred acies 
she raises many fine beef cattle. She has a quarter-section of ];\\u\ on 
the Tule river, of which eight acres are planted to oranges just com- 
ing into bearing, and she has other ranches which she rents out 



404 TULAKE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

DK. E. H. BYEON 

The birth of Dr. E. H. Byron occurred at Lemoore, September 
17, 1877, the son of H. AV. Byron, lie was educated iu the common 
school and in the Union high school at Santa Paula, Ventura county, 
graduating in 1896, when he entered the California Medical College 
at San Francisco, where he was graduated in medicine in lyUU. 
Then he took the pharmaceutical course at the College of Physicians 
and Surgeons of the same city, and was graduated as a pharmacist 
from that institution iu 1907. 

After leaving college Dr. Byron was in charge of McLean hos- 
pital, San Francisco, for a year, and during the ensuing two years 
lie was iu the practice of his profession, with offices in that citj'. 
Then, going to Guerneville, he opened an office and was in practice 
there two years and during the next two years he was in profes- 
sional work at Wheatland, Yuba county. He then opened a drug 
store in Oakland which he conducted iu connection with professional 
practice until in 1909. In Novemlier of that year, he entered into 
professional partnership with his brother at Lemoore, and in the 
month of November, 1912, opened up his jjresent office in the Bolt- 
man block in the city, of Lemoore. He is a member of the San 
Joaquin Valley Health Association, the California State Medical 
Society and the American Society of Medicine and is the health 
officer and a member of the city board of health. He affiliates so- 
cially with most of the fraternal orders represented at Lemoore. To a 
general practice Dr. E. H. Byron has consistently devoted himself 
with sucli success that his services are in demand not only in the 
town but also in its tributary country and as a citizen lie lias 
demonstrated much ])ubUc spirit. Tu 1902 he married Miss Har- 
riet Freeman of San Jose. Tlieir son, Herbert Freeman Byron, 
celebrated his seventh liirthday May, 1912. 



THOMAS B. TWADDLE 

The present cluiirman of the Board of Supervisors of Tulare 
county is Thomas B. Twaddle, who has long been prominent in the 
aifairs of this part of the state. Born in Utah, in 1857. he was 
taken as a cliild liy his familv on their removal to Nevada, and it 
was in the last named state that ho grew to manhood and obtained 
an education and a practical knowledge of elemental business. He 
came to California in 1879, when he was about twentv-two years 
of age, and settling three miles east of Tulare, he rented land, raised 



TULAKE AND KINGS COUNTIES 405 

grain aud did general farming in the vicinity of Tulare until 19U4, 
since when he has given his attention to other interests. 

In 1892 Mr. Twaddle was first elected to the office of supervisor, 
aud he has served iu that capacity by repeated re-election continu- 
ously to the present time. It is said that he holds the record in 
California for unbroken service as supervisor for nineteen years, 
ami during the long period of fourteen years he has been chairman 
of the board. In every measure for the advancement and improve- 
ment of Tulare county that has been put forth during the last two 
decades he has taken a helpful interest and some of the more im- 
portant ones he has been instrumental in putting through by sheer 
force of will, determined that Tulare county should have the very 
best in any line that was available to it regardless of reactionary 
opposition. He has proven himself a model official and has come 
to be known as one of the men of California who accomplish things. 

In 1883 Mr. Twaddle married Miss Emma Garisou, daughter of 
a pioneer in Stanislaus county, Cal., where she was born, aud thej' 
have children as follows: Alice M., who is the wife of W. J. Fisher 
of Tulare; Forrest J.; Frank C. ; William, and Thomas B., Jr. 
Socially he is a member of the order of Woodmen of the World 
and has for several years been council commander of his local di- 
vision and is a supporter of the auxiliary order of Women of Wood- 
craft. He is a Red Man, also, and affiliates with the order of Fra- 
ternal Aid. 



H. SCOTT JACOBS 

The talented aud successful lawyer of Hanford, who has at- 
tained a high position at the hnv of Kings county, Cal., and by 
n:any public-spirited acts has won reputation as one of the leading- 
citizens of Hanford, is H. Scott Jacobs who was born at Visalia 
November 2, 1875. He obtained his English education in i)ul)lic 
schools at Lemoore and in the San Jose high school from wliicli lie 
was graduated in 1894. His professional studies were begun in 
1895 under comjjetent direction, and after mastering the law course 
at tlie University of California he was graduated in 1899 and was 
admitted to the bar of California May 19th that year. 

Tt was at Hanford that Mr. Jacobs entered upon the jiractice 
of his profession, opening an office in the First National Bank liuild- 
ing. From the outset he succeeded even beyond his expectations. 
Not much time was required for his ability and attainments to 



406 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

become known to the business public and his general attitude as a 
lawyer and as a citizen commended him to the people. It became 
evident that his public spirit was equal to any reasonable demand 
upon it and that he was willing at all times to encourage to the 
extent of Ms ability any proposition put forth for the benefit and 
development of the town and county. In November, 1902, he was 
elected district attorney for Kings count}", in which office he served 
faithfully and efficiently four years. In 1906 he was appointed 
by the board of trustees of the city of Hanford to the office of city 
attorney, and in that relation to the general public he has still more 
markedly won the good opinion of all. In his political affiliations he is a 
Republican, and fraternally he is identified with Hanford Parlor 
No. 37 Native Sons of the Golden West, the Independent Order of 
Odd Fellows and the Woodmen of the World. 

Mr. Jacobs married, April 30, 1901, Mary Elizabeth Manning, 
a daughter of T. A. Manning, of Lemoore, and they have three chil- 
dren, Elizabeth Belle, Justin Manning and John H. 



LEE GILL 

A son of L. L. Gill, a pioneer of Tulare county, by many 
tlioiight to have Ijeen the owner of the first orange trees in Tulare 
county, Lee Gill was liorn in Yokohl valley, Cal.. August 16, 1884. 
When he was a child, his father moved to Frazier valley, to the 
property on which Lee now lives. The old place was purchased 
from H. M. White and was the scene of the primitive venture in 
orange-growing referred to above. 

In the public schools near his home, Mr. Gill was educated and 
on his father's rancli he obtained the intimate knowledge of stock- 
raising which has made him an adept in tliat line. His oi^erations in 
association with his brothers mark him as one of the leading 
stockmen of California. They own about forty-eight thousand acres 
of range land and keep on Lee's ranch about six hundred cattle, 
two hundred hogs and many fine horses, bu^-ing and selling for the 
city market, in which Mr. Gill is as well known and as highly es- 
teemed as any stockman in the state. 

In 1908 Mr. Gill married Miss Maud Porter, a native of Cali- 
fornia, a lady of many accomplishments who shares with him much 
social popularity. They have one son, Austin. Mr. Gill is a 
youns" man of nmch public spirit, who is found always readv to assist 
to the extent of his ability any movement for the benefit of the 
oommunitv. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 407 

HON. WILLIAM M. DE WITT 

This old established, reliable and suecessfnl lawyer of Tiilarc 
Cal., was boru in Monroe comity and grew to manhood in Warren 
county, Ky. The time of his birth was May 17, 1839, and his parents 
were the Rev. Allan W. and Hannah (Tooley) De Witt, his father 
• having been a native of Kentucky and his mother having been l)orn 
in Virginia. Eventually the family moved to Illinois. From there, 
in 1859, they crossed the plains with ox-teams to California, starting 
in April and arriving September 18. Allan W. De Witt, who was 
a minister of the Christian church, died at Tulare May iil, LS97, 
Ms wife having passed away in 1896. Their son Samuel lives in 
Los Angeles; Eleazar, their second son, is a rancher living west of 
Tulare; their daughter, Lydia A., is Mrs. Zumwalt of Tulare; William 
M. is the immediate subject of this sketch. 

It was as a school teacher that William M. De Witt began his 
life in California in 1861, in charge of a country school at Red Bluff, 
Tehama county. With Job F. Dye he drove a band of cattle and horses 
from Red Bluff to eastern Oregon in 1862. They intended to drive 
their, cattle np to the mining camps of British Columbia, where 
there was a great number of miners at work and where they intended 
to butcher their cattle, freeze the meat by burying it in the snow, 
and sell it out during the winter as it would lie needed. While cam])- 
ing on John Day's river near Canon City, De Witt suggested that 
they try a pan of the gravel at that place. Mr. Dye improvised 
a pan. with whicli they succeeded in finding considerable gold in the 
very first pan. The news of their find spread and in an inconceivably 
short time some six hundred miners had located claims and were busily 
and profitably engaged at placer-mining. It is needless to say that it 
became imneeessary for them to take their cattle to the J3ritish 
Columbia market. Thus was gold first discovered at Canon City on 
the John Day's river by William M. De Witt and Job F. Dye. Returning 
to California, Mr. De Witt read law, in 1866 was admitted to the bar 
and began the practice of his ]5rofession at Woodland, Yolo county. 
There he succeeded very satisfactorily and attained so much person.il 
popularity that he was elected to represent Yolo county in the State 
Legislature at the session of 1877-78 and was appointed a memlier of the 
judiciary committee and of other important committees. Meanwhile he 
conducted a successful practice at Santa Cruz for about six years. He 
came to Tulare from Woodland in the spring of 1878 and has been 
in active practice there ever since. For ten years he has held the 
office of .justice of the peace in Tulare and during that long period 
no decision of his has been reversed. He has traveled extensively 
throughout the state, having visited nearly every county within its 
borders. 



408 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

A lover of country life, Mr. De Witt lias given some attention 
to ranching near Tulare. He was married in Santa Cruz, January, 
1872, to Miss Agnes McDonald, a native of Vermont, who has borne 
him nine children: Florence C. (Mrs. Brown), has children named 
Earl and Maud. Alice W. is Mrs. Barnaby of Spokane, Wash. 
William H. married Miss Shedler and they have children named 
Camille and Earl. The others are W^alter, John (of Coalinga),- 
Edward and Edna (twins), Iram and Earl. In every relation of life 
Mr. De Witt has shown himself a man to be depended upon. Where- 
ever he has lived he has taken an interest in all matters affecting the 
public good. Since coming to Tulare he has in many ways demon- 
strated his solicitude for the advancement and prosperity of the city 
and its people. 



SAMUEL W. KELLY 

From Arkansas, which has long been a distributing ground for 
settlement througliout the south and west, Samuel W. Kelly emi- 
grated to California in 1857, coming liy way of the overland trail 
with ox-teams and consuming seven months in making the journey. 
He was then twenty-nine years old, having been born February 11, 
1828, in Alabama, and had been taken as a small boy by his parents 
on their removal from his native state. It was in Arkansas that he 
was educated, grew to manhood and acquired a working knowledge 
of agriculture. 

On his arrival in California, Mr. Kelly settled in Tulare county 
and engaged in teaming between Stockton and Visalia. Settling on 
Elbow creek, he put up a rail pen with but a dirt floor and this was 
the home of the family for three years. In 1867 he went back east, 
but soon made a second overland journey to the Pacific coast, this 
time using mule teams, whidi brouglit him through in three mouths. 
From the time of his return until the completion of the railroad, 
which put him out of business, he teamed between Fresno slougji and 
Visalia. Then he bought ten acres within the city limits, on which 
he farmed for a time and which has been cut ti]i into lots and dotted 
with dwellings. For about twelve years he oi>erated siiccessfully as 
a cattleman in the Three Rivers section. Politically he affiliated with 
the Democratic ]iarty, and as a citizen he showed his public spirit 
in many practical ways. 

In 1853 Mr. Kelly married Miss Celetha Hudson, who was born 
and reared in Arkansas and accompanied him to California. She 
bore him tliree children, Samuel A., Mrs. Lulu E. Reeves and Mrs. 



■^^ 



^ 



p 





TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 411 

Mary J. Sparks, who with the widow survive him. 'J'iie lioine of Mrs. 
Kelly is No. 500 Gosheu avenue, Visalia. Mr. Kelly passed away 
April 15, 1911, deeply regretted l)y all who had kuown him. 



HON. J. W. GUIBEESON 

Conspicuous among California's self-made men, is the prom- 
inent financier and member of the state Legislature, whose name 
heads this article. He is a native of the state, having been born 
in Lake county, November 26, 1865. When four years of age he 
was taken to Ventura county, where he grew up, attending the pub- 
lic schools, and later became a student at the University of Southern 
California, supplementing this with a commercial course at Wood- 
bury Business College. 

Full of ambition and eager to succeed, J. W. Guiberson started 
his active business career without a dollar to aid him. At the age 
of nineteen he rented a six hundred and forty acre stock ranch in 
^^eutura county, his good reputation and credit enabling him to 
obtain a five-year lease of this ranch. He devoted himself most 
assiduously to the operating of this place, reaping such a measure 
of success, that when he was dispossessed of it at the end of fifteen 
months, because of the sale of said ranch, he was reimbursed for 
his labors there to the amount of $1,500. He then rented mountain 
land for a cattle range and increased his herd. Meanwhile he had 
bought out a drug store and made some good investments in real 
estate at Santa Paula, the results of which at the end of that year 
netted him a capital of $;)250 cash. His career, however, had not 
been an easy one. His health broke because of his close confinement 
in the drug store, and he was compelled to seek an outdoor life 
For a short time he engaged in the mercantile business, but met 
with heavy financial losses, and with such discouragements at hand 
he again was obliged to l)egin at the bottom to retrieve his losses. 
He obtained a lease for one-half share in the renting of the same 
ranch on which he had started out when nineteen years old, at the 
end of the first year lieing able to make a payment on (Mghty acres 
in Ventura county which he immediately began to improve and 
farm. Some years later he purchased a second ranch of forty acres 
in the same county, improving aud farming it for some time, and 
finally having a fine farm, good buildings and most productive or- 
chards on both places. His orchards were planted to apricots, lemons 
and prunes, and he soon had them in condition to be good income 
])roperty. 



412 TULARE AND KINGvS COUNTIES 

Continuiug to operate the two ranches, Mr. Guiberson bought 
out a livery business at Piru with the proceeds, and engaged in the 
livery and team contracting business, sending his teams into the oil 
fields near Piru, and he soon was the proprietor of an extensive 
teaming business. He prospered well and by 1905 found himself 
the owner of considerable money for which he sought good* invest- 
ment. In company with about twenty-five others, many of whom 
were from Los Angeles, as members of the Security Land and Loan 
Company, he bought thirty thousand acres of land in Kings county, 
and in that year came to Corcoran as the superintendent of said 
comi)any, whose affairs he managed very successfully. During this 
time he made large individual purchases of land in that vicinity, his 
ideas of purchase proving most ingenious, as for instance Ms pur- 
chase of a thousand acres at $13 per acre, which he sold a few 
months later at $30. He has explicit faith in the fertility of the 
lands of this locality and it has never been shaken, and it is due to 
him more than to any other person that the value of the lands about 
Corcoran has been demonstrated. 

Mr. Guiberson 's principal aim has been to develop and improve 
these lands and place them on an income-paying basis. He has no 
hesitancy in saying that for the growing of alfalfa these lands have 
few equals and no superiors in the entire state of California. Among 
his first purchases were eighty acres of land adjacent to the town- 
site of Corcoran, forty acres of which he retains as his home place. 
and this he has beautified and imjiroved until it is a model suburban 
home. To him belongs the distinction of having erected the first 
building on the townsite of Corcoran. 

At a later date Mr. Guiberson organized the J. W. Guiberson 
Company, a dairy and stockraising concern with a capital of $500,000 
based on bona fide land values. In this he is associated with J. C. 
Sperry, of Berkeley; Nathan W. Blanchard, of Santa Paula, and 
the company's holdings aggregate twenty-six hundred acres in all, 
two thousand acres of which is planted to alfalfa and irrigated by 
means of artesian wells. On one section of this property are two 
dairies which produce cream to the amount of $2075 per month. 
There are six hundred head of cattle on this property, and about 
nine hundred hogs, all of which are very well kept. 

Besides these great landed interests Mr. Guiberson has otln>rs. 
different in character but almost as important. He is vice president 
of the Bank of Corcoran, vice president of the company operating 
the Corcoran Department Store, president of the Kings County 
Dairyman's Association, vice president of the Board of Trade of 
Corcoran, vice president of the Kings County Chamber of Com- 
merce and president of the California State Dairy Association. 



TULAKE AND KINGS COUNTIES 413 

The lady who became the wife of Mr. Guiberson was before lier 
marriage Miss Nellie F. Throckmorton, who was born in Illinois, 
October 8, 1866. They have four daughters, viz. : Hazel, Claire, 
Helen and Edythe. Mr. Guiberson is a Mason, a member of the In- 
dependent Order of Odd Fellows and the Fraternal Order of Elks. 
Of v;nusual public spirit, he is ready whenever occasion demands to 
aid any measure which in his judgment involves the public good, 
and he is confidently relied upon to be the friend and helper of all 
public enterprises. With the privilege of the pioneer to take pride 
in the town, he is zealous for the promotion of every interest, and 
in church and educational circles he is particularly active. He is 
president of the Board of Trustees of the Presbyterian church at 
Corcoran, and the commodious edifice recently erected by the con- 
gregation at once testifies to his munificence in gift of money as 
well as able and untiring effort as a member of the building commit- 
tee. He is president of the high school board and Corcoran will 
before the commencement of another school year have a fifty thou- 
sand dollar high school building. 

Relying upon his ability and good judgment Mr. Guiberson was, 
by the Board, of County Supervisors of Kings county, made vice 
president of the Kings County Panama Pacific Exhibit Commission, 
a position for which he is peculiarly qualified. No better testimo- 
nial of his real worth can be adduced than to mention the fact that 
in the campaign of 1912 he was elected as a Deiiiocrat by the people 
of his county, which is normally Republican, by more than thirteen 
hundred majority. For years he has been interested in the subject 
of good roads, and takes an active part in everything else pertain- 
ing to the public welfare and human upliftment. As a natural con- 
sequence he at the last election received a very flattering vote in his 
home and all other precincts in that county, where he was best 
known, and in his election to the assemlily his fellow-citizens have 
made no mistake. This fact is recognized by the oi)position as well 
as his Democratic friends, and became vei-y evident from such 
expressions as the following editorial from the ])en of L. P. Mitchell, 
editor and proprietor of the Corcoran Journal of November 14, 1912: 

AssembhTnan-elect J. W. (fuiberson is well (lualilied for th.e 
l)osition to which he lias been elected. He is a sell-made man who 
has achieved success in his own affairs, and Corcoran people feel 
sure he will represent his district in a most satisfactory manner. 
Mr. Guiberson is an enthusiast on good roads and advocates the 
abolition of the present unsatisfactory system of handling county 
road matters, favoring the employment of an expert road man and 
placing the entire county road system in his charge. We consider 
this a very logical solution of the vexatious road problem. 



414 TULARE AXD KINGS COUXTIES 

IRVING L. JAMESON 

Born near Dixon, Solano eoiinty, Cal, in 1862, Mr. Jameson is 
a true son of California, proud of its history and traditions, and 
devoted heart and soul to its Ix'st interests. His parents were John 
B. and Catherine (Watts) Jameson, natives of Illinois. His father 
crossed the plains with mule teams in 1854, and at the end of hi-s 
long and tiresome, but never to be forgotten, overland journey settled 
in Napa county. Later he moved to a ])lace near Dixon, Solano 
county, where he acquired government land and engaged in farming 
and stock-raising, his chief product being grain, with which he was 
quite successful. Mrs. Jameson bore her husband children as follows : 
Henry, of Glenn county; Edwin, of the state of Washington; Mrs. 
John Bond; Mrs. Robert Board; and Irving L. The father died in 
1902, the mother in 1874. Mr. Jameson was enterprising and pro- 
gressive, honest, industrious and public spirited, in every sense of 
the term a good and useful citizen. 

It was in the ]iublic school near his childhood home in Solano 
county that Irving L. Jameson laid the foundation for the practical 
education which has helped him to make a success of his life. His 
primitive venture into business was made as a rancher on the Jame- 
son homestead, near Dixon. Afterward he became owner of the place 
by purchase from his father. In 1888 he moved from Solauo county 
to Tulare county and bought one hundred and sixty acres of land on 
Deer creek, where he raised grain. From there he eventually moved to 
Porterville. He came to his present ranch of about eighty acres, four 
miles north of Tulare, in 1898, and has greatly improved the yilace, 
making of it a high grade dairy ranch of thirty-five cows, sixty-five 
acres being devoted to alfalfa. His new dairy barn, recently built after 
bis own plans, is one of the most practical for its purposes in the 
county. The cow stalls have cement floors, and there are individual 
stalls, which were designed by Mr. Jameson with a view to giving each 
animal comfort. The feed alley also is cemented, and the jn-ovisions 
for convenient grain storage are excellent, while tlie plant for pump- 
ing water is up-to-date and thoroughly efficient. Mr. Jameson's finely 
bred Holsteins attract the attention of all visitors to the vicinity of 
Ms dairy. He is practically and enthusiastically interested in horses, 
and owns the well-known imported French Percheron stallion, Mar- 
dochet, registered; five brood mares and colts and an imported jack 
for breeding mules. 

Absolutely as his home interests command his attention, Mr. 
Jameson has others. He is a director of the Tulare Rochdale store, 
a member of the Dairymen's Co-operative Association of Tulare, and 
is identified with local bodies of the Woodmen of the World and tht» 
Fraternal Brotherhood. He married, in 1898, Miss Ida Roberts, a 



^ 







TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 417 

native of Solauo county, and they have children: Mada, Lawrence, 
Doris and Lowell. The interest in jiublic affairs so characteristic 
of the elder Jameson has been passed down to the son, and there is 
no other man in this part of the county more willing to assist, 
according to means and ojiportunity, any measure that may be pro- 
posed for the general good. 



ALMER B. COMFORT 

Conspicuous among the prominent citizens and officials of 
Guernsey, Kings county, Cal., who has evidenced the jiower of staunch 
loyalty to his early training, which has materially acquired for him 
the success he has reached today, is Aimer B. Comfort, the well- 
known proprietor of tlie flourishing and active general store business 
of Guernsey, which he also serves as postmaster. Inheriting the 
splendid traits of his father, Byron G. Comfort, a pioneer of Kings 
county, who is a prosperous fai'uier near Hanford, he early evidenced 
the ability and perseverance which led him to mercantile interests, 
and his entire career has been indicative of thrift, energy and integrity. 

Born in Kings county, Cal., the son of Byron G. and Carrie H. 
(Drullard) Comfort, Mr. Comfort was there reared to manhood, 
acquiring his elementary education in the common schools, and becom- 
ing thorouiihly familiar with farm work and steady, honorable and 
clean habits. Upon reaching manhood's estate he rented a large 
dairy farm in the vicinity of Corcoran, which he operated with 
signal success, following tliat line of business for a long period until 
in 1912 he found himself able to purchase a business of his own. 
Being attracted l)y a chance to purchase a general merchandise 
business at Guernsey lie went there to make investigation witli the 
result that he bouglit and has since conducted it with tlie most 
gratifying results. Being naturally of a genial, optimistic dis])o- 
sition, he attracts many friends to him, and in his position as ])ost- 
iiuister of Guernsey, whicli aiipoinlment he received in Deceml)er 
of 1912, he finds himself the recipient of many good wislies and the 
good will of file entire coiinnunity. In addition to these duties lie 
has taken over the managoiuent of the lumber yard at Guernsey, which 
bids fair to become an important business in the near future. 

Mr. Comfort belongs to that circle of young men of California 
who have the future of the country in their hands, and wiio give 
every prophecy of taking the burden of business and jjolitical life 
on their shoulders with capa)>ility and splendid executive ability. 
Ever alert for the welfare of their interests and those of their town 



418 TULAKE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

and county, tliey are public-spirited and quick to move in the direction 
they deem best for all concerned. 

Mr. Comfort is not a holder of any public office. In politics he 
votes the Republican ticket, and his interest in the affairs and issues 
of his party is ever active, he being well-informed on all cuncut 
topics pertaining to the advancement of his country. 



THOMAS H. BLAIR 

The character of any peoiile is usually well indicated by that of 
its public uflicials. Throughout its history Tulare county has quite 
generally commanded the confidence of the y>ublie through the repre- 
sentative men who have been called to fill its offices. Judged by 
capacity and by zealous devotion to the interests in his charge, none 
has gained higher place in popular regard than Thomas H. Blair, 
eountv assessor. In qualifications essential to the proper discharge 
of his difficult duties he is adequate to all demands upon hiiu, and by 
keeping in close touch with increase of property values and familiar- 
izing himself with all current improxements he is able to judge 
accurately as to the proper assesstnent to place upon a given piece 
of property. Looking solely to the interests of the county, he eom])lies 
with the law in the perfor7nance of his duties, manifesting always 
a conscientious regard for the rights of the taxpayer. 

In Randolph county. Mo.. Thomas H. Blair was born in 1864, 
a sou of Calvin H. and Mary E. (Moflfett) Blair, natives respectively 
of Arkansas and of Tennessee, and was brought to California by 
his parents, who settled in Sonoma county iu 1865 and in Tulare county 
about a year later. Calvin H. Blair crossed the plains first in 1850 
and after mining two years in California went back to Missouri in 
1852. There he married in 1856 and about ten years later he moved 
to Iowa, where he remained about three months, losing all his 
worldly possessions except an ox-team and a saddle horse, which 
he sold for just enough money to take liim to California liy way 
of New York and the Isthmus of Panama. He moved from 
Sonoma county to Tulare county, bringing his family and be- 
longings in wagons, and settled on Dry Creek. From there he 
moved to near Exeter, in the Yokohl valley, where he farmed for 
some years. In 1875 he went to Orosi, in the northern part of 
the county, and bought land there which he farmed until 1896, 
when his death occurred. Following are the names of the children of this 
pioneer and his wife, IMary E. (Moffett) Blair, who died January 14, 
1912: William M., Thomas H., Mattie, wife of H. Mevers of Fresno 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 419 

county, Cal., Laura, Caledonia, Sarah, wife of George Hedgepeth, 
Frank L. , James I., Finis E., and Clarence Holmes. 

On his father's stock ranch, Thomas H. Blair was reared, actiuir 
ing a good knowledge of cattle raising, meanwhile attending public 
schools as opportunity afforded. After the death of his father he 
associated himself with his lirothers in the management of the home 
ranch. F}-om his early manhood he has been active as a Democrat in 
local political affairs, and in 1902 was elected county auditor of Tulare 
county. He was re-elected to that office in 1906, and in 1910 was 
elected county assessor. The work of the county assessor is of such 
a character that his duties are not to be compared with those of any 
other officer. His success depends largely upon the accuracy of his 
judgment ; he comes in direct contact with all classes of i)eople and 
in designating jaroperty valuations he must treat all with impartial 
fairness. That such is the spirit of Mr. Blair's official conduct is 
well known to all, and he is personally acquainted with nearly every 
old citizen of the county and no man or official is held in higher 
esteem. Socially he affiliates with the Knights of Pythias, the Ancient 
Order of United Workmen and the Fraternal Order of Eagles. 



CHARLES C. BEQUETTE 

The name Bequette has long been honored not only in Tulare 
county, but in the state at large. In these pages appears a biograph- 
ical sketch of Paschal Bequette, Jr., in which is given some of the 
history of Col. Paschal Bequette, Sr., a native of Missouri who rose 
to eminence on the Pacific coast. Charles C. Bequette was born 
at Saint Genevieve, Mo., in 1834. His parents dying while he was 
yet but an infant, when he was five years old he was taken to Wis- 
consin, where he liecame a member of the family of his uncle. In 
1850, when he was about sixteen years old, he and his brother crossed 
the ]ilains to California and located at Hangtown. Later, in 1852, 
they went to Sierra county, where they mined until 1S.")7. In 1859 
Mr. Bequette drove a l)and of cattle from Yolo county to Tulare 
county and settled on land at Outside Creek, where he ])rosj)ere(l as 
a stockman until 1S()7. Then selling out his interests there, he home- 
steaded a tract of land near Lemon Cove, where he was successful 
in the breeding of cattle and horses for fifteen years, until he took 
up his residence at Visalia, where he has since lived, continuing an 
active interest in the jiolitical affairs of the county. His public 
spirit and his caiiacity for public business have been recognized by 
his appointment to various responsible offices, he having served two 



420 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

terms as deputy recorder aud auditor of Tulare county, of which he 
has also served as deputy county treasurer and deputy county 
assessor. 



JOHN CUTLER, M. D. 

AND 

A. R. CUTLER 

A native of Indiana, Judge Cutler was born in 1819, in the town 
of Newport, Vermilion county. A predilection for the medical pro- 
fession led him to take up studies with that object in view at an early 
age, and he completed his studies and received his diploma in Iowa. 
In the last mentioned state he followed his profession until the mem- 
orable year of 18-t9, when he crossed the plains to California and 
made settlement in Eldorado county. While a resident of that 
county he served as a representative to the state legislature. 

Judge Cutler's residence in Tulare county began with the year 
1852, at which time he engaged in agriculture on a large scale, farm- 
ing one thousand acres five miles northeast of Visalia, on the St. 
John's river. Here, as in his former place of residence, his fellow- 
citizens recognized his unusual ability and fitness for public office 
aud for two terms he served them efficiently as judge of Tulare 
county. The marriage of Judge Cutler united him with Mrs. Nancy 
(Rice) Reynolds, a widow with two daughters, Amelia and Celeste. 
Seven children were born of her marriage with Judge Cutler, three 
sons and four daughters, as follows : Mrs. V. D. Knupp of Porter- 
ville; A. R. ; Jolm; Mary; Loyal 0.; Ida, and Mrs. Edna Hartley. 
Judge Cutler passed away on the family homestead near Visalia 
July 12, 1902, and his wife died in Santa Cruz several years prior 
to his demise. 

The second child born to Judge and Nancy (Rice) Cutler was 
A. R. Cutler, a native of Tulare county, born in 1860. When his 
school days were over he assisted his father in the care and manage- 
ment of the home ranch, and later undertook ranching on his own 
account. At the present time he is ranching on a large scale in 
Tulare county, having under his immediate supervision the Venice 
Cove, Monson and Hills Valley ranches. His stock now numbers 
four hundred head. Fruit is raised on one hundred acres — raisin 
grapes, peaches, apricots and oranges predominating — besides which 
he has twenty acres in prunes, and the remainder of the land is in 
alfalfa. 

Following a service of four years as deputy county clerk, Mr. 




(3^^^^!^ /- SJ^^ yP^^ Q^a^ ^ ^j^^ 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 423 

Cutler received still greater honors in April, 1911, when he was elected 
mayor of Visalia, an office which lie is well qualified to fill. His mar- 
riage in 1888 united him with Miss Nimmie Pringle, and they have 
two sons, John F. and Albert R. 



CHARLES JOHN EKLOF. 

Numliered conspicuously among the thrifty and prosperous or- 
chardists of Tulare county is CUiarles John Eklof, born October 10, 
3869, in Sweden. In April, 1889, when he was about twenty years 
old, he landed in New York, equipjied with a good education obtained 
in the public schools of his native land. His early training had laid 
a splendid foundation on which to enter the struggle for success in 
America, to which he dedicated himself, his ambitions and his energies. 
Mr. Eklof had been born and brought up on a farm, and it was as 
a farm hand in Nebraska that he passed the first year of his life in 
America. In 1890 he went to the Northwest, into Washington, where 
he remained three years and four months, and in 1894 he embarked 
for San Francisco, whence he soon made his way to Fresno, being 
here employed in a vineyard till 1897. In the year last mentioned 
he located near Lindsay and engaged in the nursery business, which 
commanded his efforts for twelve years and brought him fairly good 
financial recompense. Then he began to buy land, securing forty 
acres and then twenty, forty of which were put into an orange 
orchard. The estimated value of his cro^a in 1912 is $10,000 and he 
is one of the most successful men in his line in his vicinity, with 
promising plans for the future. 

In 1911 Mr. Eklof married Ml's. Mary B. Fran?;, a native of 
Ohio. As a citizen he is loyal and patriotic, taking an active interest 
in the welfare of his community. His success has been great, for 
he started with nothing and could now turn his interests into $50,000 
cash, but it has been the success of a self-made man, well deserved. 



WILLIAM J. ADAMS 

The life of the late William J. Adams of Visalia, Tulare county, 
spanned the period from April 4, 1837, to June 8, 1909. He was liorn in 
Graves county, Ky., and died at his California home. Reared and 
educated in his native state he left there with a herd of cattle which 
he drove to Texas and from there across the plains to California, 
arriving in 18.')9. Settling near Tuhire I^ake in Tulare count v, he 



424 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

ranged cattle lor many years aud later removed them to tiie mouu- 
tains on Adams Flat, where he expanded his enterprise l)y raising 
both cattle and horses. 

In 1871 Mr. Adams disposed of his cattle and horse interests and 
gave his attention to sheep herding. For two years he operated in 
Oregon, then came back to California and settled near Madera on 
the Fresno river, in Madera county, but after two years spent there, 
he returned to Tulare county and for twelve years farmed the old 
Murray ranch, near Visalia. 

In January, 1865, Mr. Adams married Miss Mary Fannie Murray, 
a native of Missouri, a daughter of Abram H. Murray, who crossed 
the plains in 1852 and settled his family in the Visalia neighborhood. 
There their children have since become known and respected. They 
are Sarah, Mrs. E. Hilton, of Porterville; Abram P.; Frank C, a 
biographical sketch of whom is elsewhere in these pages, and Russell, 
who has passed away. 

A man of strong character, upright in his dealing with all, read\' 
at all times to do all in his power for the uplift or development of 
the community, Mr. Adams was a helpful citizen and the county and 
its people are benefited by his influence among them. 



FRANK C. ADAMS 

The well-known and successful Imilder whose name is above is 
a native of Msalia, Tulare county, Cal., born February 28, 1873, 
son of William J. Adams. He gained his education in the excellent 
schools of that town and began his business career as an employee 
of the Seeded Raisin Packing Company of Fresno, Cal. From Fresno 
he went to Stockton, where he learned the carpenter's trade, at which 
he worked for three years. Later he was for a time located in Angels' 
Camp, Calaveras county, whence he returned to Visalia, and in the 
fall of 1908 entered the contracting and building business on his own 
account. 

Among the structures which serve to call attention to the skill and 
enterprise of Mr. Adams are the Charles Berry residence, the A. D. 
Wilson home, the addition to the E. 0. Miller residence, the Simon 
Levy l)rick l)lock, the Dr. W. W. Squires residence, the Meyer Iseman 
residence, the Howard Parish residence, and numerous others of differ- 
ent classes and of equal importance at and near Visalia. On January 17, 
1911, Mr. Adams foi-med a partnership with J. H. Johnson in oi'der to 
give attention particularly to the architectural department of his enter- 
prises, but the firm was dissolved October 2G following, and since 
that time Mr. Adams has been in sole control of the busill(^■^s wliicli 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 425 

he has built up. Of the huihlings erected bj- Adams «& Johnson, the 
following mentioned, jierhaps as conspicuous as any others, are the 
residences of Tug Wilson. .John C. Hayes, Harry Hayes, D. E. Perkins 
and Ealph Goldstein. 

May 1, 1912, marks a very important epoch in Mr. Adams' 
career. He then became the Imilder for the Mt. Whitney Power & 
Electric Co., of Visalia. Ills lirst work was the building of a large 
brick and iron addition to the steam ])lant at Visalia, and on June 
25, li)12, he began the constrnction of the Mt. Whitney lN)wer Plant 
and cottages at No. o on the Kaweah river. 

In the National Association of American Engineers Mr. Adams 
hohls membership and he aftiliates fraternally with Four Creek lodge. 
No. 1)4, I. O. O. F. He married October 7, 18!')4, Miss Mary A. Nichols, 
a native of Missouri, who has borne him three children, Willard, 
Merle and Russell. As a citizen Mr. Adams has commended himself 
to all who know him as a man of public spirit who has the welfare 
of the community at heart and is ready at all times to resjiond 
promptly and liberally to any call on behalf of the general good. 



WILLIAM W. COLLINS 

The present sheriff of Tulare county is William W. Collins, 
now serving his third term in that important office. Mr. Collins is 
a son of Albert 0. and Sarah J. (Cochran) Collins, natives of Ohio. 
In 1862, Albert 0. Collins enlisted in Company C, Eighty-lifth Regi- 
ment Illinois Volunteer Infantry, in which he served continuously 
from April that year until the end of the Civil war, rising to the 
rank of cai)taiu. Returning to Ohio he taught school there until the 
spring of 1866, when he moved to Putnam county. Mo., where he 
lived until May, 1873, at which time he came to California and 
located in Bakersfield, Kern county. There he was for a time in 
the meat trade and later conducted a large ranch until 1887, when 
he took up his residence in Inyo county and engaged in stock-raising- 
near Bishop. Mrs. Collins ]>assed away in San Francisco in 1910, 
aged sixty-eight years. 

To Albert O. and Sarah J. (Cochran) Collins were born three 
sons and two daughters: Chai-les A., sheriff of Inyo county; Wil- 
liam W. Collins; John L. ; Minnie, widow of W. L. Blythe of Palo 
Alto, Cal.; and Leoi-a, who is the wife of Bertrand Rhine of P>isho|). 
Cal. 

William W. Collins was born on the old Collins homestead, neai- 
Coshocton, Ohio, June 23, 1865, and was eight years old when his 
father removed to California. He was educated in the ))ul>lic schools 



426 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

of Kern coimty, at the Visalia Normal sohool and at the California 
State Normal school at Los Angeles. After his graduation he 
assisted his father for a time in the latter 's cattle business. In 1889 
he entered business life for himself as a wheat grower and as the 
proprietor of a livery stable at Tulare, and in 1895 began buying 
wheat in Tulare and Kern counties for the Farmers' Union Milling 
Co. of Stockton. The next year he accepted a position with J. Gold- 
man & Co. of Tulare as foreman, in charge of their lands, orchards 
and stock. He has recently set out, at Lemon Cove, a forty-acre 
orange grove. 

In Republican politics Mr. Collins has long been locally jiromi- 
nent, and in 1902 he was elected sheriff of Tulare county. He has 
been twice re-elected, and now, in his third term, is one of the most 
popular sheriffs the people of the county have ever known. A 
man of much public spirit, he has been helpfully identitied with many 
im]iortant home interests, and has in all things devoted himself, heart 
and soul, to the welfare of the community. Fraternally he affiliates 
witli the Woodmen of the World, the Ancient Order of United Work- 
men and the local lodge and encampment of the Independent Order 
of Odd Fellows, and in the last mentioned order he has been elected 
to ditferent offices of importance. Sharing with him in the esteem 
of the people of Visalia is Mrs. Collins, a native daughter of Inyo 
county, who was formerly Miss Louise Clarke. She has borne him 
three daughters — Hazel, Vera and Blanche. 



DR. WILLIAM P. BYRON 

That able and jiojmlar medical man of Kings county, Cal., Dr. 
William P. Byron of Lemoore, was born in that town, October 22, 
1878, and was there reared and educated in the public schools. He 
is the son of H. W. Byron, one of the first pioneers of this part of 
the state. In 1900 Dr. Byron liecame a student at the California 
Medical College, San Francisco, and in 1904 was graduated from 
that institution with the degree of M. D. He began the practice of 
his profession at Ridgefield, Wash., and continued it there with con- 
siderable success until 1906, when he returned to Lemoore and opened 
an office there. He was successful from the outset and soon became 
one of the most popular physicians in that part of the county. In 
November, 1909, Dr. E. H. Byron, his brother, became his profes- 
sional partner, and this partnership continued until November, 1912. 
He has always devoted himself to general practice and is in much 
favor as a family physician. He was made district surgeon for the 
Southern Pacific Railroad Co. in 1907. and is still holding that respon- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES • 427 

sible position. He is the city health officer of Lemoore; county 
physician for Western Kings county, and a member of the San 
Joaquin Valley Health Association, the California State Medical 
Society and the American Society of Medicine. Socially he affili- 
ates with the Masons, Odd Eellows, Red Men, Knights of Pythias, 
Foresters, Woodmen and the Fraternal Brotherhood; also the orders of 
I. D. E. S. and U. P. E. C., ComiJanions, Rebekahs and the Oi'der of the 
Eastern Star, and with all women's auxiliary lodges in the city of 
which specific mention lias not been made. 

In 1910 Dr. Byron married Miss Ruby E. Fassett of Iowa and 
they live on Heinlin street, opposite the park. Exacting as are tlie 
demands that are made upon him professionally he gives much 
time to the promotion of the general interests of Lemoore, and has 
proven himself a public-spirited citizen, to be confidently depended 
upon in any emergency. 



F. D. CAMPBELL 

It was in that old southern town, Yazoo City, Miss., that F. D. 
Campbell was born in 1861. But a child when his parents moved to 
Texas, it was in that state that he was reared and went to school, 
and there he became a cowboy, and he lived the wild life of the plains 
and ranges in Texas, New Mexico, Missouri and Montana. He was 
for tliree years a Texas ranger, a sworn member of the long-famous 
organization so potent in the preservation of order in the country 
along the border. Then it comprised six companies, of twenty-one 
men each, all under command of General King, each company having 
a captain, a lieutenant and a sergeant. The members were men of 
proven In-avery, picked from among the boldest and truest spirits 
on the frontier. Much of their work was against smugglers along 
the Mexican border, and some interesting experiences were had in 
jmrsuit of cattle rustlers. One band of smugglers was pursued 
relentlessly by the rangers five years, and was captured at length 
by Mr. Campbell's company at Persimmons Gap, Tex. The head- 
quarters of the rangers was at Austin, Tex., and companies were 
stationed at Sunset Water, Aberdeen, Colorado City and Port Davis, 
all points of strategic importance on the frontier. Mr. Campbell, 
who was twice wounded in tliis arduous and exciting service, received 
his lionorable discharge November, 1883. 

(roing to Kansas City, Mo., after leaving the frontier service 
in Texas, Mi-. Cam])bell shijiijcd all kinds of livestock from that point, 
till in 1910, when he came to Tulare, to engage in the buying and 
selling of livestock. His business at once assumed important pro- 



428 • TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

portions and he was shipping $30,000 worth of cattle and hogs each 
month, as the months averaged. In no department has there been 
a falling off, and in some departments a wondei'ful growth has been 
recorded. He is also part owner of and a director in the Kern 
Street Market of Tulare, one of the conspicuous concerns of its kind 
in this part of the state. 

In 1896 Mr. Campbell married Miss Alice Landers, a native of 
Mississippi, and they have the following children, mentioned 
in the order of their birth : Ethel, Gladys, Argyle, Blanche and Theo- 
dora. Since taking up his residence in Tulare he has in many ways 
demonstrated that he is a helpful and dependable citizen, patriotically 
devoted to the general interests of the community and ready and 
able at all times to respond to demands in behalf of measures under 
promotion, with a view to the advancement of the public welfare. 



DANIEL G. OVERALL 

The Texan is as cosmopolitan as any citizen of the Ignited 
States. Wherever his lot may be cast, he immediately becomes one 
of the people and is ready with heart and hand and money to do 
his part toward the advancement of the public weal. Texas, too, has 
been a station in the travels of families bound for California, but 
who have been leisurely in their travels; the stop in Texas has some- 
times been premeditated, sometimes it has been incidental and some- 
times accidental. These stops in Texas have been signalized by the 
addition, by marriage or by birth of members to families from further 
east or north. It was in Texas, in 1857, that Daniel G. Overall first 
saw the light of day. His father, Daniel G., Sr., was a native of 
Missouri; his mother. Charity (Mason), was a native of Illinois. 
The father sailed around Cape Horn to California in 1849. Later 
he went back to Missouri, and from there went to Texas. While 
tarrying in the Lone Star State, he busied himself by getting to- 
gether a large band of cattle, which he drove through from there 
to Tulare county in 1859. Selling his cattle, he was enabled to buy 
ranch property here. He prospered as a farmer, and here he and 
his wife botli died. They had two children — Mrs. Mary K. Farrow 
of Visalia and Daniel G. Overall, Jr. The latter was reared and 
educated in Tulare county and went into the real estate business 
at Visalia, in association with John F. Jordan and W. H. Ham- 
mond. A man of public spirit, and influential politically, he was 
elected auditor and sheriff of Tulare coi;uty and served in the former 
capacity during 1887-1888 and in the latter during 1889-1890. 

Ranching and stock-raising have commanded Mr. Overall's atten- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 429 

tion during most of his business career, but in late years be has been 
much interested in orange-growing in the citrus fruit belt of Tulare 
county, and is now president of the Central California Citrus Fruit 
Exchange. He is manager and principal owner of the Kaweah 
Lemon Companj', director in the First National Bank of Visalia 
and the president of the ^'isalia Abstract Company. For thirteen 
years he was proprietor of the Palace Hotel, Visalia, and he has 
extensive oil interests in Kern county and mining interests in Cala- 
veras county. He is a Scottish Eite Mason, Knight Templar and a 
Shriner, active and widely known in the order, and affiliates with 
the Fresno lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. 
He has married twice. His first wife was Miss Hawpe, who bore 
him a son, Orvie Overall, who has attained much fame as a base- 
ball pitcher in some of the great games of the past decade. His 
present wife was Miss Van Loan. 



ROBERT ANDERSON MOORE 

As president of the Lemoore Chamber of Commerce and chair- 
man of the Kings county Republican central committee Robert Ander- 
son Moore has become well known throughout central California, and 
he has other claims to distinction than these. Born in Grant county. 
Wis., in 1861, he lived there until he was fifteen years old, when his 
family moved to Minnesota and later to Oregon. He came, event- 
ually, to California, and after stopping for a time in Los Angeles 
came to Kings county and ))ecame a salesman in the McKenna Broth- 
ers' hardware store. He mastered the business and acquired great 
popularity with its ]iatrons and in 1890 bought the establishment, 
which he conducted with success until 1911, when he sold it to the 
Lemoore Hardware Company. 

Since disposing of his hardware interests Mr. Moore has inter- 
ested himself in real estate operations. He owns two ranches, one of 
forty acres, three miles nortli of town, and one of one hundred and 
sixty acres, ten miles south and near the lake; the former is in vine- 
yard, the latter in barley and alfalfa. He has invested to some extent 
in oil property and is a director in the Mount Vernon Oil Company, 
which is operating in the Devil's Don field. He was one of tlie organ- 
izers and is in his second year as president of the Lemoore Chaml)er 
of Commerce. As chairman of the Kings county Republican central 
committee and in other capacities he has long been active in political 
work, and he was three times elected a member of the Board of Trus- 



430 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

tees of the city of Lemoore, serving two terms as chairman of tliat 
body. Socially he affiliates with the Odd Fellows and the Foresters. 

In 1886 Mr. Moore married Miss Clara H. Peck, a native of Hol- 
lister, Cal. Their son, B. C. Moore, is the successful manager of an 
automobile garage. During all of the years of his residence at Le- 
moore, Mr. Moore has manifested a lively interest in the development 
and prosperity of the town, and as a man of public spirit he has 
cheerfully and generously done nuieh for the betterment of local condi 
tions as occasion has presented itself. 



JOHN WESLEY GAER 

When John Wesley Garr, who lives half a mile north of Monson, 
came to Tulare county there were but three houses between his resi- 
dence and Hanford, roads were few and unimproved, the towns Dinuba 
and Sawyer liad not come into existence, and irrigation ditches had 
not been constructed. Mr. Garr was born in Indiana, September 10, 
1837, and his father was a soldier in the war of 1812. He was reared 
and educated there and passed his active years there until he was 
forty years old, and then went to Texas, where he lived three years. 
His next place of residence was in southern Iowa, in which state 
his brother died aged ninety-six years, their father living to be 
eighty-six years old. 

In Indiana Mr. Garr married Mary J. English, a native of that 
state, whose parents came there from Pennsylvania. She was the 
mother of children as follows : Alice J., Charles N., William F., 
James F., Martha and George. Alice J. married Light Frazier and 
lives near Dinuba; they have had two children (one has passed away), 
and Dora is married, her husband being employed in the oil fields of 
California. William F., whose wife died thirty years ago while he 
was a citizen of Texas, is living with his father. John W. Garr has 
lived in Tulare county since 1881. Pre-empting an eighty-acre 
homestead, he paid for it ]iartially by chopping wood and has im- 
proved it and prospered on it as a farmer. He has given some 
attention to figs and has on his place the largest fig tree in Tulare 
county, which he planted twenty years ago, and which in 1911 pro- 
duced $75 worth of fruit. From twelve trees his crop altogether 
made more than a ton. 

In his political affiliation Mr. Garr is a Democrat. He takes a 
deep and alnding interest in every question pertaining to the welfare 
of the community and co-operates i)ublic-spiritedly in every move- 
ment for the general good. 




^ 



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^^^rUL---^ 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 433 

. THE OLD BANK 

The history of "The Old Bank," at Hanford, Kings county, 
Cal., would be interesting, even were it not inseparably interwoven 
with that of the development of the city and its tributary territory. 
It is a state bank, established under the laws of the State of Cali- 
fornia, December 1, 1901. It was founded by S. E. Biddle, the pio- 
neer banker of Hanford, who founded the Bank of Hanford, the 
latter being the first bank in the town. The original officers of The 
Old Bank were S. E. Biddle, Sr., president; P. McRae, vice-pi-esi- 
dent; S. E. Biddle, Jr., cashier; Frank E. Hight, assistant cashier. 
In 1903 S. E. Biddle, Jr., resigned and Frank R. Hight was made 
cashier and J. J. Hight, assistant cashier. In 1908 S. E. Biddle, Sr., 
died, and Daniel Finn was elected president, Frank R. Hight becom- 
ing cashier and manager. The present officers of the institution are: 
Prank R. Hight, president and manager; P. McRae, vice-president; 
J. J. Hight, cashier. Its directors are: Mrs. A. A. Biddle, P. 
McRae, Frank R. Hight, Charles Kreyenhagen, Joseph Schnereger, 
N. Weisbaum and J. J. Hight. The bank's growth has been 
steady and strong and it is regarded as one of the staunch and most 
dependable financial institutions of central California. Its depos- 
itors are among the leading business men of Hanford and vicinity. 
It pays interest on term deposits, and its present capital is $50,000 ; 
its deposits aggregate $600,000. 



H. M. SHREVE 

A prominent financier and business man of central California, 
H. M. Shreve is filling the responsible positions of vice-president and 
manager of the First National Bank of Tulare. A native of Borden- 
town, N. J., born February 17, 18(54, he acquired his education in ))ublic 
schools and in higher institutions of learning in New Jersey and in Phil- 
adelphia. In 1880 he came to (California, and for six years thereafter 
was employed in connection with mining interests in Mariposa county. 
Later he came to Tulare and was employed for several years as a 
bookkeeper in the office of the Reardon & Piper Planing Mill, until 
he opened an office to handle insurance and conveyancing, and this 
he operated until the beginning of his connection with the First 
National Bank. (A historical sketch of that institution will be found 
in this work.) 

In 1887 Mr. Shreve married Alida E. Beals of San Francisco. 
He affiliates with Olive Branch lodge No. 2(59, F. & A. M., of 
Tulare and with the Visalia Masonic chapter and commandery. He 



434 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

was for several years clerk of the city of Tulare, his interest in the 
city and county making Mm a citizen of much public helpfulness, 
and there are few demands for assistance toward the uplift and devel- 
opment of the community to which he does not respond promptly 
and liberally. Socially he is president of the Tulare Club, and as 
such has had much to do with projects for the general benefit. Among 
his interests outside the city should be mentioned the National Bank 
of Visalia, of the board of directors of which he is an active member. 



JOSEPH LA MAECHE 

The American family of LaMarche was estalilished in Canada 
early in the last century and John LaMarche, son of the original emi- 
grant, was born in Ontario and in 1837 enlisted under the banner of 
MacKenzie in the so-called Canadian rebellion. His son Josepli, born 
near Montreal in 1823, was graduated from a Canadian college, farmed 
early in life at LaClinte Mills and was later a merchant and a magis- 
trate. He married Julia LaMare, whose grandfather in the jiaternal 
line founded the Canadian family of LaMare. Joseph LaMarche died 
in 1900, aged seventy-seven years ; his wife died when she was seventy. 
They had thirteen cliildren, ten of whom lived to maturity and still 
survive, the second of these being Joseph LaMarche, Jr.. of Tulare 
county, who is the sole representative of the family in California. 

Mr. LaMarche was born on a farm forty miles from Montreal 
March 1, 1853, and when he had time to do so in the years of his boy- 
hood walked five miles to a French school if the weather was not too 
inclement. When he was thirteen years old he went to Upper Canada 
to log and lumber on the Ottawa river for $36 a year, and at the end 
of a year he came down to Quebec on a raft and signed a contract to 
work a year in a logging camp not far away. "Wlien he was fifteen 
years old he went to the Lake Su]ierior region and teamed two years 
among the charcoal furnaces around Mari|nette, Mich.; from there he 
came west to Nevada and teamed at Carson and Virginia City and 
assisted in the construction of a flume. In 1875 he came to California 
and for three years thereafter was employed on a rancli near Prince- 
ton, Colusa county. His first venture as an independent farmer was 
as a grain grower on rented land, whicli he operated four years. 
Coming to Tulare coimty in 1883, he began farming as a renter, but 
soon bought two hundred and eighty acres of bayou and railroad land, 
four miles south of Tulare, whicli he farmed to grain a year and sold 
in 1885. In 1886 he married and located on a ranch of fourteen hun- 
dred and twenty acres, eight miles southwest of Tulare which was the 
property of his wife; a part of it was farmed to grain, the remainder 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 435 

was in pasture. Later he owned four thousand acres on the Tule and 
Elk Bayou rivers, where he raised hay and bred cattle, but this he 
sold in 1908. He now has twenty-one hundred and sixty acres, of which 
six hundred acres are devoted to alfalfa, the remainder to grain and 
pasturage. Since his retirement from active farming he lias rented 
most of his acreage and now has four tenants. 

The activities of Mr. LaMarche are by no means coulined to the 
management of his land. He was prominent in organizing the Dairy- 
men's Co-operative Creamery Co., was elected one of its directors 
three months after it began business, and has acted in that capacity 
to the present time. In 1906 he was a director in the Co-operative 
Creamery Co. of Tulare. He was one of the organizers also of the 
Rochdale Co., and is a stockholder in the Tulare Canning Co. and the 
Tulare Milling Co. He was also a director in the Fair Association of 
Tulare county, which constructed a race track and held fairs for two 
years, and he is now owner of the track. Through his membership of 
the Tulare Board of Trade he has had to do with numerous enter- 
prises which have tended to the commercial growth of the city; in 
1908 he was elected president of the Bank of Tulare, of which he had 
for many years been a director. In politics he is a Democrat and he 
was at one time a member of the county central committee of his 
party. He was made an Odd Fellow in Colusa county and since he 
came to Tulare has been active in the work of the local lodge and en- 
campment, his afliliation witli this order covering the long period of 
thirty years. 

At Tipton, Tulare county, Mr. IjaMarche married August 7, 1886, 
Mrs. Mary (LeClert) Creighton, widow of John M. Creighton. Mrs. 
LaMarche was born at Portsmouth, England, a daughter of Theodore 
and Mary (Sims) LeClert, natives respectively of France and of Eng- 
land, and member of families long established. When Mr. LeClert 
settled in England he found employment for a time as a brick mason 
at Portsmouth. Coming later to the United States, he worked at his 
trade a while at .Vlliion, N. Y., and from there he came to California 
in 1856 liy way of Cape Horn. After mining at Kniglit's Ferry and 
at Copperopolis he turned his attention to farming and eventually 
passed away at Oakdale, Stanislaus county, where his wife also died. 
Of their three daughters and two sons, all of whom are living, Mrs. 
LaMarche was the second born. In 1861 she, with other members of 
the family, joined her father at Knights' Ferry, where she married 
Melvin Howard, a native of New York state, who became an orchard- 
ist at Sonora, Cal., and died there. Later she married John N. 
Creighton and in 1876 they settled on the Creighton ranch in Tulare 
county, and a few years later Mr. Creighton died at Byron Hot 
Springs, Contra Costa county. She is a woman of fine aliilities and 
has been prominent in the work of the Woman's Christian Temperance 



436 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Union and in movements for the emancipation of women and for the 
uplift of the human race. Both Mr. and Mrs. LaMarche are noted for 
their public spirit and for their ready and unostentatious charity. 
They have two children, Joseph F., who is in the United States navy, 
and Miss Bernie LaMarche, who was a student at the University of 
Southern California at Los Angeles and in 1911' married Charles 
Phillip of Los Angeles. 



FRANK E. FITZSIMONS 

The son of George and Agnes (Ward) Fitzsimons, Frank E. Fitz- 
simons was born March 30, 1886, in Thomas county, Kans., where he 
lived until he was eight years old. His parents built the tirst sod 
house and the first frame house in that part of the county. Wlien 
they located there they were eighteen miles from the nearest neighboi', 
twenty-sis miles from the nearest considerable settlement and fifty 
miles from Winslow, which was their market place, and they were 
often menaced but never really injured by Indians. In 1894 they 
sought a more congenial clime in California ; and after living a year 
at San Jose they came on to Visalia and for three years the elder Fitz- 
simons was foreman of the Geo. A. Fleming Fruit Company's ranch. 
In 1897 they settled near Orosi, where Mr. Fitzsimons has been suc- 
cessful with fruit. Following are the names of the children of George 
and Agnes (Ward) Fitzsimons: Frank E.. Orriu, Ray, Walter, Lulu 
and Vera. Lulu married F. A. Listmau and lives near Orosi. Orrin 
married May Vance. 

Frank E. Fitzsimons was educated in the common school and at 
Occidental College, Los Angeles, 1906-07. He married Edna Furtney 
and has a son named Richard, who is attending high school. They 
formerly lived near Orosi and had thirty acres in peaches, which he 
sold for $400 an acre. The remainder of his ranch broiaght a satis- 
factory ]irice. He had owned the place t-liree years and had imjiroved 
it in many ways. He next bought one hundred and forty acres, eighty 
of which he has sold. He now lives in Orosi. The balance of his ranch 
he is going to set to Thoni]ison and Malaga grapes and figs. He is a 
close student of everything that pertains to his business and is advanc- 
ing along scientific lines, and his methods are certain to bring him 
even greater success than that which he has already attained. Mr. 
and Mrs. Fitzsimons are Republicans and members of the Methodist 
church. He affiliates socially with the Woodmen of the World and is 
public-spiritedly devoted to the community's highest and best interests. 




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TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 439 

FRANK GRIFFITH, V. S. 

This well-known veterinarian of Ilanford, Kings oounty, Cal., was 
born October i, 1850, twelve miles northeast of the site of Merced and 
nine miles from Snelling, Cal., a son of Dr. Joshua Griffith, at which 
time the place described was in Mariposa county. Dr. Joshua Griffith 
was liorn June 28, 1800, seven miles below the site of Brownsville, 
Washing-ton county, Pa., which was then known as Red Stone Fort. 
In 1810 he was taken by his family to Ohio, to a sparsely settled 
section in which the nearest schoolhouse was twenty-tive miles distant. 
In 1820 he went to Missouri, and there he met John Hawkins, and in 
1822 he was a member of the Ashley expedition, consisting of sixty 
men, to explore the Missouri river to the mouth of the Yellowstone. 
The party made the trip in a large keel-boat, returning in 1823. In 
1824 he opened a gunshop at Santa Fe, N. M., where he made con- 
siderable money, and in 1830 he went to Sonora, Mexico, and had many 
interesting adventures. In 1831 he established a variety store at 
Hermosillo, Mexico, and from that time until 1848 he prospered 
variously. In the last named year he came to Los Angeles, Cal., and 
soon after he was mining at Amador with old man Amador. Later 
he mined at Volcano and Mokelumne Hill and on the fifth of Novem- 
ber, 1848, he discovered Jackson creek in Amador county. 

July 25, 1844, Dr. Griffith married Miss Fanna Arreas, a native 
of Sonora, Mexico. He brought his wife with him to California in 
1848 and theirs was a slow journey across the lilains and througli 
mountain passes. Some of his recollections of mining at that time 
included experiences at Aqua Frea. From Amador county he went 
back to Los Angeles and from there he moved to near Snelling in 
July, 1849. Thus began his exi)eriences in Merced county. He was the 
first to sow wheat on the bottom lands and plains there and he garnered 
his first crop in 1851. Going to Santa Cruz he brought back with him 
a }5ack-train, some seed corn, some chickens, three dogs and several cats. 
When he settled on the Merced river the only other settlers along the 
stream were Samuel Scott, James Waters and J. M. Montgomery. 
Before he ))nilt his house and while it was under construction he 
camped undei' a big oak tree in the open and there his wife gave bii-tl: 
to tiieir son Frank. It was necessary for the doctor to go to Santa 
Cruz and Stockton for the necessaries of life. He packed in house- 
hold goods and trees and once brought from Santa Cruz a sack of 
wheat for which he ]iai(l $150, and from which he raised his first crop. 
In 1853 he built a small Hour mill i)rincipally for his own use, which 
was operated by water which he brought from the Merced river through 
a ditch two miles long, and was the first water-power grist mill in the 
San Joaquin valley south of Sutter's Fort. It stood until 1861-62, 
wlicn it was washed away by flood. 

2i 



440 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

111 liis yoimg iiiauliood Dr. Griffith studied medicine, and he prac- 
ticed almost continuously as occasion offered from the time he was 
twenty-four years old until 1874, during a period of fifty years. As a 
pioneer and in his later business enterprises he was a potent factor 
in the development of the country, and as a citizen he was widely 
known and respected. He died June 11, 1896, his wife in June, 1897. 
They had four children of whom two, Frank and Frederick, are living-. 
The old Griffith homestead was later sold to Henry Cowell of Santa 
Cruz. 

Frank Griffith was reared on his father's home farm, educated in 
the public schools and assisted his father until 1875, when he came 
to the site of Grangeville in what is now Kings county, Cal., which 
was nearer to Kingston than to any other town. Having gained a 
good knowledge of medicine under his father's tuition he took up 
veterinary practice in connection with farming. He had been to this 
locality in 1870 on a trip of exploration and at that time had rowed a 
boat over Tulare lake, which then covered much land which was bare 
in 1875. He had rowed to within ninety yards of the school house at 
Lemoore, in company with Judge and Mrs. R. B. Huey, Mr. and 
Mrs. George W. Skaggs and Mrs. Grillith, and their boat had floated 
over the land later included in the Cochran, Strattou and Jacobs tracts. 
He remained at Grangeville practicing veterinary surgery until 1877. 
As a citizen he attained to considerable {n-ominence and eventually 
became a constable, a deputy sheriff and a deputy United States mar- 
shal, and in 1884 he was made under sheriff of Tulare county and 
took up his residence at Visalia. In 188(5 he removed to Santa Cruz 
for the benefit of his wife's health, and there opened a veterinary 
office and built a home. In 1890 he came to Hanford, and in 1891 his 
wife, who had greatly improved, joined him. He had in the mean- 
time bought seven acres of land on Seventh street, where he has since 
lived. He established his office on the site of the present Emporium 
building, but several years later moved it out to his ranch, where he 
constructed and fitted up a hospital, and until 1907 he maintained bis 
office and infirmary on Green street not far from his present location. 
In 1907 he built his present quarters, consisting of an office, a hospital 
and an infivmary for the accommodation of twenty-four animals in 
the main building with fifteen outside stalls under a separate roof. 
While carrying on a general veterinary practice, he makes a specialty 
of the treatment of dogs and is the owner of a fine kennel. His ac- 
quaintanceship and his professional reputation have been extended 
through his incumbency of the office of county livestock inspector and 
county veterinarian of Tulare county for fourteen years, he being aji- 
jiointed to these positions by the supervisors of the county after the 
division. He has for many years raised thoroughbred Berkshire hogs. 
Dark Brahinah chickens and Muscovy ducks. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES . 441 

September 19, 186S), Dr. Griffith married Harriett A. Moore, a 
daughter of Joseph Moore, who brought his family to Kings county 
from Oregon in 1864. Fraternally the doctor affiliates with the Inde- 
pendent Order of Odd Fellows, being a member of lodge, encampment 
and canton, and with the Native Sons of the Golden West, a charter 
member of Visalia pai'loi' No. 1!), in which he has passed all chairs. 



JOHN C. DANNER 

The man who practically owns and operates the commercial inter- 
ests and general industries of White River, Tulare county, Cal., is 
John C. Danner, a native of Missouri born in 1857. Nathan Danner, 
his father, was a native of North Carolina, and it was in Tennessee 
that his mother was born, but they are now both deceased, the latter 
having passed away in 1911. His parents came to California in 1858, 
when John C. Danner was scarcely more than six months old, and 
landed at San Francisco, and from there they went to Tuolumne 
county. In 1864, when he was about seven years old, they moved to 
Merced county, where the boy was educated in the public schools. 
Later the family lived in Kern county till 1887, and there John C. was 
superintendent of the Kern County Land Co. In the year last men- 
tioned he bought a farm nine miles east of White River, where he 
lived until 1907, and in the meantime bought ten hundred and forty 
acres of range land and went into the cattle business. He continued 
at this until he moved to AVhite River, where he bought the land in- 
cluding the townsite, most of which he owns at this time. He event- 
ually sold his cattle and range land, but is still the owner of four hun- 
dred and eighty acres of valuable California soil. He is the pro- 
prietor of a hotel, a livery and feed establishment, a general store and 
other business interests at White River and he and his son own a tele- 
phone system of about one hundred miles of wire which centers there. 
He has been a school trustee since he was old enough to hold office, 
was a deputy county clerk, and in Kern county served as dej^uty 
county assessor during two years of the administration of Tom Hard- 
ing. 

The development of Tulare county has had in Mr. Danner not 
only a witness but a factor, his public spirit having im]ielled him to 
assist all local interests to the extent of his alnlity. In 1884 he mar- 
ried Alice Barbeau, a native of Illinois, and they have six children: 
Lea S. was born in Kern county, is married and is associated witJi his 
father in business; Luciau Carl, who also was born in Kern county, 
assists his father in the management of his mercantile interests ; Fred- 
erick Earl and Violet ]\I. are members of their jiarents' household, and 



442 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Violet is an accomplished musician ; Edgar and Royal complete the 
family. 

One of the prominent business men of the county, recognized by all 
who know him as a man of great ability and of the best judgment, Mr. 
Danner generously and patriotically ascribes a fair share of Ms suc- 
cess to the splendid opportunities which Tulare county has afforded 
him, and while laboring to build up his own fortunes he has paused 
from time to time to render good olKces for the benefit of the com- 
munity. 



GEORGE JOHN WEGMAN 

Of German birth and ancestry, George John Weginan opened his 
eyes to the world iu Hesse-Darmstadt, where Michael Wegman, his 
father, owned a vineyard and winery. He was educated in the good 
schools kept near his home, and after he became old enough helped 
his father, hj whom he was trained to be industrious, self-reliant and 
persevering. He was yet a comparatively young man when he mar- 
ried Caroline Wennerholdt. born in Kur-Hessen, daughter of Jacob 
Wennerholdt, an officer in the German army, who, during his nineteen 
years' service participated in the wars forced on Europe by Napoleon, 
fighting at Waterloo, running inany risks and receiving numerous 
wounds, and wlio when his service was ended was a hotel-keeper until 
his death. 

In 1849 Mr. Wegman and his good wife sailed for the United 
States, their cash capital small, but they had youth, health and hope. 
For a time after their arrival, Mr. Wegman worked as a cooper at 
Lancaster, Pa., but about 1855 he went west to Warsaw, Hancock 
county. 111., and established himself as a cooper, then as a farmer. 
Some ten years later he moved to Wisconsin and took up a farm in 
Jefferson county, where he remained ten years, till in 1875, when he 
came out to the Pacific coast and settled in Tulare county, on Elbow 
creek, three miles northeast of Visalia, where he liought land and en- 
gaged in farming and stock-raising. His success was very satisfactory 
and he prospered until his death, whicli occurred December 29, 1896, 
when he was about seventy-five years old. His wife died June 24, 
1903, aged eighty-two years, five montlis and twenty-three days. She 
was a devout member of the German Reformed Church, all through 
her long life exemplifying in character the doctrines she professed. 
Mr. and Mrs, Weg-man had four children: Caroline, wife of Andrew 
Belz; Theodore, who died in Wisconsin, aged fourteen years; Eliza 
Otelia, who cared for her parents until they ]3assed away and has 
since lived on the old Wegman homestead, with her sister and her 




THOMAS LEWIS 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 445 

brother-in-law; and Matliilda, who died in California when she was 
eighteen years old. From the time of liis arrival in California until 
his death, more than two decades afterward, Mr. "Wegman was a citi 
zen of Tnlare county, and lield an honorable position among its good 
and thriftv farmers. 



THOMAS UEAYIS 

The late Thomas Lewis, whose widow lives in Tulare, two blocks 
west of A street and Kern avenue, was born in Michigan, A])ril 3, 
1838, and was reared to matTirity at Toledo, Ohio. In 1859, when he 
was about twenty-one years old, he came to California by way of the 
Isthmus of Panama and took up laud on the Mokelumne river, about 
twenty miles from Stockton. There he lived until 1865, when he 
sold out and went to Sacramento, and here he bought farm land and 
operated a dairy until 1870, when he located at Tulare on a home- 
stead of eighty acres and pre-empted one hundred and sixty acres 
more and a timber culture tract of the same area. Later he bought 
four hundred and thirty acres on the Tule river, in the vicinity of 
Woodville and about twenty miles from Tulare, and for a time raised 
cattle and horses and kept a dairy, but later he gave some attention 
to farming and devoted two hundred acres of land to alfalfa, and in 
following out his plans herein indicated he spent the remainder of 
his life. He died November 28, 1887, and his widow conducted the 
ranch until April, 1891 ,when she sold part of the land and removed to 
AVoodville. There she made her home until in 1907, when she dis- 
posed of her property in that town and took up her residence in 
Tulare, renting her farm property to tenants. 

Before her marriage Mrs. Lewis was Miss Martha A. Johnson 
and was l)orn in Missouri, a daughter of James T. and Elizabeth 
(Bond) Johnson. She came to California in 1864 and lived in Wood- 
bi-idge, San Joaquin county, until in 1866, and she was married May 
15 of that year. Of the live children she bore her husl)and, four 
survive, namely: Chloe E. married Edwin Hamlin; Rosa is the wife 
of A. Wann; George S., of Fairbanks, Alaska, is an engineer; and 
Ruby is Mrs. William Beare of Tulare. Charles is dead. Mrs. Lewis 
is a member of the Baptist church and with her husband she was 
formerly connected with the Grange. 



WILLARD ERNEST DINGLEY 

No work devoted even in part to the prominent men and lead- 
ing interests of Kings county, Cal., would be complete without some 



446 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

detailed reference to tlie well-known farmer, financier and man of 
affairs whose name is above. 

It was at San Francisco, Cal., that Willard Ernest Dingley was 
born, December 4, 1874. He was reared in that city and in Oakland, 
and it was in the public schools of Oakland that he gained his edu- 
cational training. In 1898, when he was about twenty-four years 
old, he came to Kings county and engaged in farming just outside 
of Lemoore. From the outset of his career here he liked the town 
and its people and had faith in its future. He achieved success as 
a farmer and gave very close attention to his ranch interests until 
he became cashier of the First National Bank of Lemoore, which posi- 
tion of trust and responsibility he accepted in April, 1907, and since 
that time he has devoted all his ability and energy to the upbuilding 
of all the interests of the staunch financial institution which is the 
pride of the business community of Lemoore. Meanwhile he has 
superintended the farming of four hundred acres, one hundred and 
thirty of which is in vineyard, the remainder being under alfalfa. 
To stockraising he has given considerable attention, with very satis- 
factory results. Taking an interest in all the affairs of Lemoore and 
of Kings county, he has been helpful in the promotion of many move- 
ments for the general good, and has won an enviable reputation as a 
citizen of enterprise, initiative and public spirit. 



W. F. CARTMILL, M. D. 

In 1861, when Dr. W. F. Cartmill bought property in Tulare 
county, the city of Tulare had not been founded and the county was for 
the most part unimproved. He saw here promising conditions which 
had escaped the attention of many others, and soon bought a quarter 
section of land ten miles southwest of Visalia, to which he added from 
time to time till he owned twelve hundred acres, all under irrigation. 
He raised cattle as long as cattle raising was profitable, then turned 
his attention to sheep. His flock at one time numbered six thousand, 
but he sold it aliout 1894 and for the succeeding ten years conducted 
an apiary. In 1904 he sold his bees and retired from active life. He 
had lived at Tulare since 1872, about the time of the coming of the 
rail road to the town. The residence that he had built at the time was 
one of the first imposing ones in the place, and it soon l)ecame a land- 
mark on West Tulare street. 

It was in Franklin county, Ohio, that Dr. Cartmill was born. Jan- 
uarv 5, 1822, the sixth in order of nativity of the seven children of 



TULARK AND KINUS COUNTIES 447 

William and Isabelle (Ferguson) Cartmill, natives, respectively, of 
Virginia and of Old Virginia. To Kentucky Mr. Cartmill emigrated 
and there he met and married Miss Ferguson. Soon after their mar- 
riage they moved to Franklin county, Ohio, and later they went to 
Madison county, in the same state, and on Darby creek in tliat county 
Mr. Cartmill cleared and impioved a farm. There the couple lived 
out their days, Mr. Cartmill living to be ninety-seven years old. As a 
boy, Dr. Cartmill attended a subscription school in a little log building 
that was little better than a hut. He read medicine under the precep- 
torship of Dr. Thomas, of London, Ohio, and practiced his profession 
there 1846-48. In the latter year he set out for California, but was 
persuaded to stop in Columbia, Mo., where he practiced alxiut two 
years. In 1850 he crossed the plains with horses, following the over- 
land trail up the Platte, on to Salt Lake (where he staid a fortnight), 
thence down the Humboldt and by the Carson route. One hundred 
days passed after he crossed the Missouri state line before he arrived 
in California. Locating at Rancheria, near Volcano, Amador county, 
he divided his time between mining and practicing medicine and surg- 
ery. In 1854 he returned by way of the Isthmus of Panama to Ohio, 
and from there went to Missouri. Near Columbia, March 27, 1855, he 
married Miss Sophia P>arnes, who was born in that neighborhood, a 
daughter of the Rev. James and Elizaljeth (Burkhart) Barnes, na- 
tives, respectively, of Kentuck\' and Missouri. Mr. Barnes, after set- 
tling in Randolph county. Mo., became a pioneer farmer and P>a]itist 
preacher. He was a hero of early Indian wars. He and his wife, 
parents of fifteen children, both died in Missouri. All but two of their 
sons and daughters grew to maturity and four of them lived to old age. 
Mrs. Cartmill was the only one of them who came to the Pacific coast. 
Dr. and Mrs. Cartmill came to California by the Nicaragua route and 
he resumed his work in Amador county, where they settled. From 
there they came to Tulare county in 1861. Some account of his activi- 
ties has been given above. He belie\-ed in Reiniblican j^rinciples and 
voted for the nominees of his party, but was never a practical poli- 
tician. He long maintained a warm interest in the San Joaquin Val- 
ley Pioneers' Society. Duiing his long residence in the county he 
supported movements for the benelit of the people and in e\ery jiossi- 
ble way lat)ored for the good of the conununity. He passed away 
March 26, 1906; his wife, July 5, 1007. The deeiiest liereavement lliaf 
came to them was the dcatli, liy diplitlieria, within ten days, of tlieir 
three daughters, Floi-a, F>va and Mary. Their youngest son. Walter 
Selmon, died, aged two years. There appears in this work a l)iograi)ii- 
ical sketch of their son, Wooster B. Cartmill. They reai'ed to woman- 
hood a girl named Amelia Jessie, who married R. F. (iueriu, a dairy- 
man, living near Tulare. 



448 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

FRANK R. HIGHT 

The president and manager of tlie Old Bank of llanford. Kings 
coimty, Cal., is Frank R. Higlit, one of the most trustworthy finan 
ciers in central California. Mr. Hight was born in Wyoming county. 
Pa., January 15, 1862, and after having l)een graduated from the 
State Normal school at Bloomsburg, Columbia county. Pa., taught 
school in his native state. In 1889 he came to California and resumed 
teaching in Merced county. He located in Hanford in 189.3 and after 
teaching two years in the public school bought an interest in the Han- 
ford Abstract Com])any, which he retained until in 1901, when upon 
the organization of the Old Bank he liecame its assistant cashier, a 
position from which he has advanced to that of president and mana- 
ger. He has been city treasurer of Hanford since 1902, in which posi- 
tion he has handled big responsibilities with nmch conservatism and 
discretion. 

In 1894 Mr. Hight married Miss Mary Williams, a native of Colo- 
rado, and they have four children, Harriet I., Roliert R., F. Raymond, 
and Helen I. Hight. 



ABRAM HUNTER MURRAY, Se. 

Of Scotch-German blood Abram Hunter Murray, Sr., was in 
everything that the term can imjily a typical patriotic American. 
From liis father he inherited the rugged constitution and intellectual 
characteristics of a long line of ancestors who lived their lives and 
died in Scotland, and through his mother many qualities which have 
made for good citizenship on this side of the Atlantic since Germans 
first set foot on American soil. His ancestor, Thomas Murray, born 
in Tennessee, removed to Missouri with his family, one member of 
which was Thomas, who was born in Campbell county, Tenn., Jan- 
uary 28, 1797, and who in his early' manhood had plenty of experience 
of war. He went to the front in 1812. took part in the Black Hawk 
war and was in command of troops in the Mormon war. From his old 
home at Boones Lick, Cooper county. Mo., he moved to the mouth of 
the Moniteau river, in that state, where he was a farmer and a fei-ry- 
man until 184o, and then settled near AVest Point, Cass county. Mo., 
and resumed farming. Responding to the call of gold in California, 
his sons came to the Pacific coast as ])ioneers, and in 185.3 he and his 
wife and their three daughters joined them at Petaluma, where he 
died in his eighty-fifth year. In Missouri he was county judge four- 
teen years and there and in California he long held the office of jus- 
tice of the peace. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 449 

The womau who became Mrs. Thomas Mnrray, Jr., was Miss Bar- 
bara Hunter, who was liorn in Powell's Valley, Tenn., July 7, 1797, 
and died at C'loverdale, Cal., in her eighty-fifth year. Her family 
came over from Germany to A'irginia and moved from there to Ten- 
nessee, where her father was a farmer. She bore her husband twelve 
children. Mary M. (Polly) became Mrs. Walker and died at Santa 
Rosa. Margaret (Mrs. Hensley) died in Madera county. Jane C. 
married Enoch Enloe and died in Cole coimty. Emily M., of Inyo 
county is Mrs. Hugh Enloe. Abram H., Sr., is the immediate subject 
of this notice. Urith (Mrs. Orr) died in California. Barbara Ann. of 
San Diego county, is Mrs. Williams. Joshua H. came to California in 
1850, was a farmer and died at Yisalia. Josephine died when slie was 
ten years old. Rachael, of Santa Rosa, is Mrs. Clark. Sarah E., of 
Humboldt county, is Mrs. Stanley. Hannah Retta, of Cloverdale, 
Cal., is Mrs. Cooper. 

Abram Hunter Murray, Sr., was born January 17, 1827, ten miles 
west of Jefferson C-ity, Mo. At sixteen lie moved to Cass county, 
where lie lived until April 19, 1852, when, accompanied bj^ his wife 
and three children, he started over the plains toward California with 
ox-teams, driving a herd of cattle. The journey was made by way of 
the Missouri, the Platte and the Humboldt river trails into California 
by way of the Carson river route. They stopped a few weeks in 
Stockton, then came into what is now Tulare county. The country 
was then a wilderness, and with the exception of S. C. Brown, who 
had arrived a few days earlier, Mr. Murray was the first settler here. 
The ill-fated attempt of a Mr. Woods to establish a settlement near 
the present town of AVoodville in 1850 is a matter of history, which 
relates how he and seventeen of his men were killed by Indians, only 
one man escai)ing to tell the story of the slaughter. 

In what is now the western part of Visalia, Mr. Murray began 
to farm on an extensive scale. From California and the general gov- 
ernment he bought eighteen thousand acres of land which he after- 
wards lost through the vicissitudes of business, and in dry years he 
lost many sheep. In 1879 he engaged in steam-boating and in the 
wood trade, with lieadquarters at The Dalles, Oregon, but the climate 
there drove him back to California and he acquired a tract of two 
hundred acres in the ricli San Joaquin valley. Much of this projierty 
was sold, hut at the time of his death he owned forty acres in vineyard 
and alfalfa. 

On April 25, 1844, Mr. Murray married Miss Sarah T. Hensley, 
who was born in (Vile county. Mo., July 4, 1824. It was traditional 
in her family that her father, the Hon. John Hensley, a native of Ten- 
nessee and a pioneer in Missouri, passed through St. Louis when that 
old city was yet under the flag of Spain. For a time he lived in Gas- 
conade county, that state, but later was a pioneer in Cole county, and 



450 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

was three times elected to represent his district in tlie senate of Mis- 
souri, where lie made a record as a man of honor and of pro,2:ressive 
ideas. Mrs. Murray died July 8, 1902. and her place at the old home- 
stead has been tilled by her eldest child, Mary Fannie, wife of William 
J. Adams, who came to California in 1859, and is mentioned elsewhere 
in this publication. The other children are: Thomas H., a ranchman 
near the Toll Gate, in Fresno county; Commodore P., a retired 
rancher, of Humboldt county; Jackson C, who is farming- in Fresno 
county; and A. H., Jr., court reporter of Visalia. Barbara E., who 
become Mrs. Taylor, died at her home on the White River, in Tulare 
county. Fraternally Mr. Murray affiliated with Visalia lodge No. 128, 
F. & A. M., of which he was twice elected master, and he was a de- 
mitted Chapter Mason. Politically he allied himself with Democrats. 
In his religious ideas he was liberal, but he was generous to all local 
denominations, especially to the Methodist Episcopal Church South, 
of which Mrs. Murray was a member. . He passed away at his home in 
Tulare county, January 18, 1911. 



GEORGE WASHINGTON WILLIAMS 

In Polk county, Mo., George Washington Williams, who lives 
near the Santa Fe depot at Tulare, Tulare county, Cal., was born 
January 17, 1868. There he was reared and educated and there he 
lived, farming after he was old enough, until he was twenty years old. 
Then he turned his back on the parental homestead and set out alone 
in quest of the fortune which he was destined to find in far away Cali- 
fornia. Arriving in Tulare county in 1898 he worked there for a 
time on wages and then went to Butte county, where he was likewise 
employed a year and a half. Later he returned to Tulare county, 
within which he has since made his home. He continued working and 
saving his money four years and at the end of that time began farm- 
ing for himself on three hundred and twenty acres of land on White 
river, where he made a cro^i of grain, and in the following- 
year with a partner he seeded fourteen hundred acres, but the yeai" 
was a dry one and the crop did not materialize. The next season he 
garnered a very good crop from ti\e hundred acres south of Tulare, 
where he remained five years altogether, and then for one year farmed 
on rented land northwest of Tulare. In 190-J- he Ijbught eighty acres 
adjoining the city limits, on which he farmed and conducted a dairy 
four years, but which he now rents for dairying purposes. In 1907 Iw 
bought four hundred and eighty acres nine miles southwest- of Tulare, 
which lie sold in 1909, soon afterward buying four hundred acres six 
miles northwest of the city, and here he has farmed with niucli success 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 451 

and has at this time one hundred acres in alfalfa, the remaindei- of hi.s 
land being devoted to the production of barley, wheat and corn. 

As a stockholder in the First National Banlv of Tulare and other- 
wise, Mr. AVilliaiiis has had from time to time to do with business 
interests not directly connected with the land, and in different ways 
he has, as occasion has offered, manifested a public spirit which has 
given him liigh place as a citizen. In 1898 he married Miss Emma 
Moody of Tulare. 



FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF TULARE 

A financial institution wliich was in its time |)owerfully influential 
in promotion of the advancement and prosperity of Tulare, Cal., was 
the Farmers' and Merchants' Bank, organized under the laws of 
California, with a capital of $25,000, in which Turner Nelson, John 
Goble, A. L. Wilson and H. M. Shreve were the principal stockliolders 
and active factors. In 1907 the Farmers' and Merchants' Bank was 
converted into a national bank, under the title of the First National 
Bank, Tulare, Cal. Its original capital of $25,000 was in 1910 in- 
creased to $100,000, all paid in. An idea of its progress is afforded in 
these figures, showing comparative deposits : October 6, 1908, $277,- 
545.17; October 6, 1909, $358,237.89; October 6, 1910, $4.39,357.88; Octo- 
ber 6, 1911, $506,796.43; January 1, 1913, $530,900.59. At the date last 
given the resources of the liank were as follows : cash, and due from 
banks. $172,097.35; loans and discounts, $458,552.03; U. S. l)onds at 
par, $80,000.00; banking house and safe deposit vaults, $31,000.00; 
total resources, $743,283.37. Liabilities: deposits, $530,900.59; na- 
tional bank notes, $75,000.00; cai)ital stock, $100,000.00; surplus and 
profits, $32,385.28; total liabilities, $743,283.37. The bank is under 
government supervision and is a United States postal savings deposi- 
tory. 

Statement showing increase of accounts for the year l!n2: 

Loans — 

Total at December :!!, 1912 .$458,552.03 

Total at December 31, 1911 406,949.40 

Increase for the year $ 51,602.63 

Deposits — 

Total Deceml)er 31, 1912 ,..$530,900.59 

Total December 31, 1911 462,516.09 

Increase $ 68,384.50 



452 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Assets : 

December 31, 1912 $743,283.37 

December 31, 1911 662,365.01 

Increase $ 80,918.36 

Open Checking Accounts — 

Commercial accounts December 31, 1912 1453 

Savings accounts December 31, 1912 175 



Total accounts for 1912 1628 

Total accounts December 31, 1911 - 1379 



Increase in number of accounts for year 1912 249 

Its officers and directors are T. Nelson, president; H. M. Shreve, 
vice-president and manager; "W. E. Dunlap. cashier; J. J. Mitchell, 
first assistant cashier; A. T. Warden, second assistant cashier. The 
directors are: Turner Nelson, H. M. Shreve, Clarence M. Smith, M. (i. 
Cottle and C. R. Scott. Mr. Sniitl: is ])rpsident of the National Rank 
of Visalia. 



JAMES ADDISON MOOREHEAD 

It was within the borders of West Virginia of today, then a part 
of the Old Dominion, that James Addison Moorehead was born in 
1830, and there he remained until he was seventeen years old, attend- 
ing school and learning something about farm labor and other work. 
In 1850 he went to Louisa county, Iowa, where he farmed until 1862, 
and in that year, in company with De AVitt Maxwell and the latter 's 
family, he came overland to California, the slow and wearisome 
journey consuming six months' time. They stopped at Salt Lake, 
Utah, three weeks, then came to Placerville by way of Carson, and 
from Placerville they pushed forward to Stockton, where the train 
was divided according to the respective destinations of the different 
members of the party. Mr. Moorehead worked a few days in a 
lumber yard in Stockton, and then found emplo^anent on the i-anch 
of William Bailey, with whom he remained two years, when, with 
two men of the name of Neuel, he went to the mines in Eldorado 
county, remaining there until in 1869, when he came to A'isalia. Hav- 
ing decided to take up land, he was advised to file a pre-emption claim 
on one hundred and sixty acres of public land six miles northwest of 
Tulare. Upon following this advice he lived there until he legally 
perfected his title to it and then he took up eighty acres adjoining 
his original claim. This land he im])roved and developed and farmed 





^. 



■? 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 455 

with success until 1906, when he began to rent it out, its tenant at 
this time being Fred Billings. Mr. Moorehead was the first in this 
section to fence in a ranch and lirst to file on land liei'e under the 
advertising law, his claim having been entered in the fall of 1869. On 
his place is one of the largest oak trees in the world. The original 
Grange at Tulare numbered Mr. Moorehead among its members, but 
when its charter lapsed, he did not join the new grange which suc- 
ceeded it. For many years a feature of his business was threshing 
and one of his interesting reminiscences is of farming five hundred 
acres in Stokes valley in the period 1870-73, which were truly pioneer 
davs in that section. 



KENNEDY & ROBINSON 

Among the prominent business men of Hauford. Kings coimty, 
Cal., the members of the firm mentioned above are in high repute. 
Their establishment is one of the leading business institutions of the 
city and in its own field is ])erhaiis a leader in the county. It was 
opened July 1, 1910, though its proi)rietors had previously associated 
in business at Lemoore, where Mr. Robinson bought a half interest 
in the undertaking enterjirise of Bryans & Kennedy, Mr. Bryans 
retiring from the firm. J. L. Robinson was born in Delaware county, 
Iowa, April 19, 1872, and when he was seven years old was brought 
to Sutter county, Cal., by his parents, who lived there but a year. 
Going back to Iowa, they came again to California at the end of 
another twelve months. Once more they lived in California a year, 
and this time they removed to Nebraska, where they remained until 
1888, when they came to Redding, Shasta county, Cal. Not long there- 
after they made their way back to Nebraska, whence they came to 
Hanford, arriving November 13, 1898. In the meantime Mr. Roliinson 
had gathered a good knowledge of ranching by actual ex]ierience 
in the west and of the grain and elevator business by conne(>tion 
with that interest in Cedar Rapids, Neb. During the first five years 
which elapsed after his coming, he raised wheat along the lake, about 
twenty miles south of Hanford; then he bought a ranch half a mile 
north of that city wliicli he traded after two years for another li\-e 
and one-half miles to the northwest, which he ojierated tlu'cc years 
and then sold out. Before this, however, he had bought into his 
present business, and in July, 1910, it was installed in a building built 
especially for it in Hanford. Since then the firm has conducted a 
branch establishment in Lemoore and its business in both towns has 
been very successful. Their equipment is as complete and as exjien- 
sive as that of anv of its kind in Central California and thcv opciatc 



456 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

the only ainbulanoe in Kings county. Mr. Robinson has the Hanford 
end of the enterprise in charge, wliile Mr. Kennedy superintends 
the branch at Lemoore. 

Since he became a member of the business circle of Hanford, 
Mr. Robinson has in many ways demonstrated his public spirit. He is 
solicitously and helpfully interested in everything that tends to 
promote the city's growth and prosperity. Socially he affiliates with 
the Hanford organizations of the Order of Fraternal Aid and Inde- 
pendent Order of Odd Fellows, having membership in the lodge, the 
encampment and the Rebekah auxiliary of the latter. 



PASCHAL BEQUETTE, Jr. 

In Iowa county. AA'is., Paschal Bequette was born in December, 
1845, a son of Col. Paschal Bequette, Sr. In 1852 Col. Bequette 
brought his family across the plains with ox-teams to California 
and was for a short time in general merchandise trade in Sacra- 
mento, but being a man of unusual ability he was soon called to a 
more imi)ortant field of action. In 1853 he went to San Francisco 
to enter iipon his duties as receiver of public money and pension 
agent under appointment by President Franklin Pierce, and these 
offices he filled through the administration of President Buchanan. 
In 1859 moving with his family to Visalia, Tulare county, he there 
became the owner of land and established himself as a breeder of 
cattle and horses. He served the county as its treasurer and as 
deputy recorder and passed away in December, 1879. His wife 
was Elizabeth P. Dodge, a native of Wisconsin, and a daughter of 
ex-Governor Dodge of "Wisconsin, afterward the first United States 
senator from that state and a sister of Hon. A. C. Dodge, United 
States senator from Iowa, the father and son serving in the United 
States senate at the same time. Col. Bequette was a native of 
Missouri. 

Following are the names of the children of Paschal and Pllizabeth 
P. (Dodge) Bequette: Lewis L., Mary L., Christiana A., Philip, 
Mrs. N. (). Bradley, Mrs. S. G. Patrick, Frank R., and Paschal, Jr. 
The latter passed his childhood days in AVisconsin and was in lus 
seventh year when his family moved to California. His education 
was begun in San Francisco and continued at A^isalia, and it was in 
the office of the Visalia Delta that he served a five years' apprentice- 
ship at the printer's trade. AVhen he had perfected himself in his 
knowledge of "the art preservative of all arts" he went to Ilavilah. 
Kern county, and became half owner of the Courier, a newspaper 
published in that town. In 1869 he disposed of his interests at 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 457 

HaviLah aud becaine a student at a business college at San Francisco, 
and in 1871 and 1872 lie was connected with the Los Angeles Netvs 
for a year. Returning to "\'isalia in the year last mentioned, he 
bought a hall' interest in the Visalia Times, which he disposed of 
eventually in order to engage in sheep raising in Kern county. On 
his retui'n to Tulare county he took u]) general farming and interested 
himself more actively in local politics than he had ever done before. 
He has served eight years as deputy county assessor, four years in 
the United States land office, four years as under-sheriff, in the 
administration of B. B. Parker, and he is now deputy county recorder 
and deputy county treasurer. All of these various olhces he has filled 
with ability and integrity which have commended liiiu tu the guod opin- 
ion of his fellow citizens of all classes. 

In 1875 Mr. Bequette married Martha L. Clarke, who has borne 
him children as follows: Augustus D., Paschal, Mary C, Elizabeth 
T., and James C. Mrs. Bequette is a daughter of James T. Clarke, 
a Mexican war veteran, aud a California pioneer of 1849, who was 
a prominent early stock-raiser in this state. Her mother, who was 
Mary A. Graves, was a member of the famous Donner party, the 
awful experiences of which are a part of the histoiy of pioneer 
immigration to California. Led by a man named Donner, these 
pioneers were snow-bound at the ])oint now known as Donner Lake 
in Nevada county, Cal., and a great number of them starved to death. 



E. C. FOSTER, M. D. 

A native of California and a graduate of its leading medical 
college, Dr. E. C. Foster, whose office is in the Emporium building, 
Hanford, Kings county, Cal., has amply proven his ability and success 
as a |)liysician and surgeon in general practice. 

Born in San Francisco, Cal., in 1877, Dr. Foster was educated 
in the jjublic schools there and in Oakland. He was graduated from 
the Oakland high school in 1898 and in that same year entered the 
medical <lepartment of the University of California, which in 1902 
conferred upon him a diploma which declared him to be a duly 
educated and fully competent Medical Doctor. For nine months 
after his giaduation he served with great profit to himself as an 
interne of the French Hospital at San Francisco. He began the 
regular practice of his profession in Colusa county, but soon went to 
Mexico, where he was in successful practice about a year and a half. 
In May, ^909, he came to Hanford, where he has since been in general 
practice, meeting with good success and winning a high place in the 
esteem of the people of that city and the surrounding countrv. He 



458 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

is a member of the Sau Joaquin Medical Society and of the Fresno 
Medical Society. Fraternally he affiliates with the Masons, the Wood- 
men of the World and the Fraternal Brotherhood. 

By his marriage in 1908, Dr. Foster was united with Miss J. E. 
Rathbun, who was born in Colusa county, a daughter of J. P. 
Rathbun. 

The father of Dr. Foster, C. A. Foster, of San Francisco, is a 
native of Maine, who came to the Golden State in 1868 and was in 
1893 appointed a customs inspector, with headquarters at the I'ay 
City Custom House. 



CHARLES W. HART 

A native Californian, Charles W. Hart, farmer, stock-raiser 
and dairyman, three miles southeast of Farmersville, Tulare county, 
was born at Gilroy, Santa Clara county, June 30, 1860. His father, 
Charles C. Hart, born in Litchfield county. Conn., in 1826, repre- 
sented old New England families. He married in his native state and 
came to California by way of the Isthmus of Panama about 1857. 
His brother John had come by way of Cape Horn in 1849 and had 
settled at Gilroy as a dairyman, and later he moved to Tulare 
county aiid thence to Kings county, dying at Hanford. Charles C. 
joined his brother in Gilroy and was a dairyman there until 1861, 
when he bought a farm of one hundred and twenty acres three 
miles south of Visalia and went into ranching and stock-raising. In 
1865 he pre-empted one hundred and sixty acres, now the homestead 
of his widow, which he improved and put under cultivation. Later, 
with Charles W. Hart, his son, he bought six hundred and forty 
acres half a mile from his home and eighty acr'es of land under 
timber. They farmed together until he died, July 18, 1891. He 
married Miss Helen Pa^^le, a native of New York, who survives 
him, and they had live children: Fred Miles, of Kings county, Cal. ; 
Charles Weston; John H., a farmer near the Hart homestead; Car- 
rie Ellen, wife of IT. T. Anderson, and Kittie A., who married J. L. 
Tuohy, and died in 1904. The mother of these children is a con- 
sistent member of the Baptist church. The father was a man of 
strong principles, an advocate of })rogress and reform and a stanch 
Rejiublican who took an active interest in all movements for the 
benefit of Ms community or his country. 

Only six months of his life had been passed when Charles 
Weston Hart was brought from Santa Clara count}* to Tulare county. 
He was educated in the public schools in the district and received 
valuable early training from his father. At fourteen he was an 




^ci^.^Zg^' 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 461 

active fanner on his I'atlier's ranch, operating- with reniurkal)Ie 
ability and jnda:ment. At twenty-one he was made his father's 
jiartner in the l)iisiuess of grain production and lios>- raisino;. After 
his father's deatli, Mr. Hart bought the farm outfit and stock and 
continued the enterprise, renting from time to time one thousand 
to twenty-five hundred acres of land for the purposes of his busi- 
ness, and he now owns six thousand acres. He has a herd of six 
Imndred cattle of the Durham and the Aberdeen Polled Angus lireeds, 
five hundred Poland-China hogs, one hundred and fifty horses and 
mules and a dairy of ninety cows. 

The woman who became the wife of Mr. Hart was Miss Lila 
Conlee, who was boiii in Morro, San Luis Obispo county, Cal., a 
daughter of Frank Conlee, who was a native of Illinois and a set- 
tler in California in 1870. Mr. and Mrs. Hart became parents of 
children as follows : Weston C, Helen, Hazel Irene, Ethel C, Forest 
F. and Verna. Her father ])ecame a lumlier manufacturer at Creston 
and in Tulare county, and he is now farming and growing fruit at 
Springville. Ella Robinson, who became his wife and the mother of 
Mrs. Hart, was born in Canada. Mrs. Hart is the third in their 
family of nine children, all of wliom were early instructed in the 
faith of the Methodist Episcopal church, of which both Mr. and 
Mrs. Hart are also members. In his political convictions Mr. Hart is 
both liberal and conservative, preferring to reserve the right always 
to east his ballot for the man whom he regards the best fitted for 
a specific office. 



GEORGE JASPER 

The well-known stockbuyer, George Jasper, of Hanford, Kings 
county, Cal., is a native son of the state, having first opened liis 
eyes on the world in San Francisco, which city was his home until 
after he liad entered active life on his own account. He was but 
thirteen years old when he began riding the ranges for the firm of 
Miller & Lux. Later he was in charge of their livestock in different 
parts of the San Joaquin valley until he became a buyer, in which 
capacity he traveled throughout the coast country in quest of cattle 
for that firm. For twenty-three years he continued in their em]>loy, 
and in 1907 severed his connections with them and located at Han- 
ford as an independent luiyer. He buys stock in practically all- 
counties in the valley, and ships aI)out two carloads of hogs each 
week througli the year, and about sixteen hundi'ed to two thousand 
cattle annually. He is the owner of three hundi-ed and eighty acres 
of pasture land located within six miles of Hanford. 

35 



462 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

In 18!(S Mr. Jas[)er married Freda \'ou Helms, who has borne 
him two children, Myrtle and Tillie. Fraternally he affiliates with 
the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, Fraternal Order of 
Eagles, Woodmen of the World and I. D. E. S. As a business man 
he is in high repute and is privileged to take pride in his success 
because it has been won with principles of honor and square dealing. 
He takes a helpful interest in everything that pertains to the growth 
and development of Hanford, his public spirit impelling him to aid 
to the extent of his ability all movements for the general good. His 
standing in the community is all the more noteworthy because he is 
one of the finest and most satisfactory examples of the self-made man 
to be found in Central California. 



ST. BRIDGET'S CATHOLIC CHURCH 

St. Bridget's Catholic Church, of Hanford, Cal., was originally 
a mission attached to the parish of Visalia. In 1881 a plain little 
frame chapel was built by the Rev. Aguilera, pastor of Visalia, on 
two lots donated by the Southern Pacific Railroad Company. This 
chapel was named after St. Bridget of Ireland, as the early Catholic 
settlers of Flanford were mostly Irish. The lots adjoining the 
church ])roperty were then a shepherd's camp. 

From the church records it appears that in the fall of 1886 
the Rev. P. J. Smith was appointed first resident pastor of St. 
Bridget's church. In July, 1891, he was succeeded by Rev. P. Murphy, 
who held the rectorship till 1894, when the Rev. J. Brady was 
appointed. Meanwhile the growth of the parish made it necessary 
to enlarge tlie modest little chapel and to give it a more imposing 
appearance. This work was ably planned and carried out by Father 
Brady, so that tlie present church has a seating capacity of three 
hundred. 

In 1907 Father Brady being called to other fields, the Rev. G. 
Ashe was temi)orarily appointed pastor of St. Bridget's. During the 
six months of his labors in the parish a debt of several thousand 
dollars was liquidated. He was followed by the Rev. P. F. McLaughlin 
in 1908, who further embellished the interior of the church. 

The present pastor. Rev. P. G. Scher, was appointed in August 
1911. In February, 1912, an assistant was given him in the person 
of Rev. M. Salvador from Portugal. Immediately additional Sunday 
services were arranged for in order to accommodate the ever 
increasing attendance and new fields were opened as missions of St. 
Bridget's. 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 4():; 

The Reverend Fathers now iu charge master the English, Ger- 
man, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and French languages. All of 
Kings coimt}' and a good i)ortion of Fresno county is the extensive 
field of their labors. 

Owing to the growth of the city the church in recent years found 
itself in the best business section, hence the parish, after having 
successfully purchased a splendid site of nineteen lots in the heart 
of the residential district of the city, in Jime, 1912, moved the old 
church to the new site, disposed of the old parish rectory and erected 
in its stead another more spacious and better adapted to the needs 
of the parish. 

It is confidently hoped by the present pastor that ground will 
be broken in the fall, 1913, for a large public hall and parochial school, 
large enough to accommodate from three hundred to four hundred 
children. A Sunday-school of two hundred children, a marriage 
record of o^•er sixty and a l)aptismal record of nearly two hundred 
and seventy in the year 1912 give sufficient guarantee for a good 
school. A convent for a teaching order of nuns is also being con- 
templated at a later date. 

Among the three missions of St. Bridget's that of Lemoore is 
the most important. On January 6, 1911, the cornerstone was laid 
by Rt. Rev. Mgr. J. McCarthy, V. F., of Fresno for the new St. Peter's 
church, which was erected at the cost of $5,000. Instead of one 
monthly mass with an attendance of tifty, there are now three monthh' 
masses with an attendance of one hundred and fifty to two hundred. 
The church was dedicated with great solemnity by Rt. Rev. Bishop 
Thomas Conaty, D. D., of Los Angeles, November 24, 1912. 

Twelve miles from Hanford is the Indian Mission of Santa Rosa 
of Lima. The entire tribe of Taches, about sixty in number, is Cath- 
olic. Their ])resent chapel, now in a deplorable condition, was built 
by them about forty years ago, under the direction of Father William, 
a zealous Indian missionary of the Dominican Order. A new chapel 
will probably be built in the near future. 

Riverdale, nineteen miles northwest of Hanford. is the latest 
mission of St. l>ridget's. Mass is said there once a month iu a public 
hall. Catholics in that district have increased so rapidly during the 
past few months that the erection of a chapel iu Riverdale or the 
near town of Lanare is at present receiving considerable thought. 

Catholics in Stratford, about twenty-one miles southwest of 
Hanford, are also endeavoring to secure several lots, on which to 
build a chai)el. Thus St. Bridget's parish can boast of a rapid and 
wonderful growth, which no doubt in the near future will become e\-en 
more phenonaenal, as Providence has placed it in the midst of vast 
stretches of fertile lands rarelv found. 



464 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

GEORGE A. BALLOU 

It is said "the prophet is not without honor except in his own 
country." The pioneer is a prophet who is honored in his own 
country as nowhere else; that is, after his prophecies have come 
true. His faith in the country where he elects to establish his home 
is a prophecy, and the development of the community' to numbers 
and to wealth is the fulfillment of his prophecy. Everj^where the 
pioneer is respected, and thoughtful men and women grieve be- 
cause, like the veterans of the Civil war, our pioneers are passing 
away. Soon they will be seen no more. But the good they have 
done will live after them. The making of the Tulare county of to- 
day came largely through the long-distance foresight and the humble 
trust and work of its pioneers. All such who could be reached have 
been given place in these pages. Indirectly many readers of this owe 
much to George A. Ballou, who has earned the rest from activity 
and from material cares which follows honest and patriotic endeavor. 

The Ballous of America are of French extraction. Bravely have 
they borne their part in the successive wars through which we have 
come to our national greatness. Many of the early Ballous were 
weavers, and it was but natural that in the infancy of our cotton in- 
dustry they became connected with it in one way or another. Ballou 's 
cottons, manufactured at Woonsocket, R. I., by Oliver Ballou, be- 
came known round the world. Harvey Ballou, Oliver's son, of 
Rhode Island birth and rearing, was a farmer and a bricklayer and 
jilasterer. He married Ruth Gould, born at Cape Cod, Mass., and 
they both died in Rhode Island, he in 1854. Of their three sons and 
three daugliters, George A. was next to the last born. September 
26, 1832, was the time of his birth, and Cumberland, R. I., was the 
place. He gained a common school and academic education and 
received full instruction from his father in the secrets ol the plas- 
terer and bricklayer. 

In 1850 Mr. Ballou came to California, with other gold seekers, 
by way of Panama, and stopped eighteen months at San Diego, 
whence he went to Los Angeles. His mining was more remunerative 
than was that of others whom he remembers, and after a stay of 
eight months in Los Angeles, a shorter one at San Francisco and a 
period of working at his trade in Stockton, he resumed it for a 
time in Mari])()sa county. From there he went, eventually, back to 
Los Angeles, and in 1860 he became a jiioneer at Visalia. Here, 
after working as a plasterer and bricklayer several years, he began 
contracting in his line, and many of the early buildings of the town 
were erected under his superintendency. He continued his business 
actively till 1899, when he retired, the better to give attention to his 
property in town and his large lioldings, of more than a thousand 
acres, in Tulare and two other counties. His lands were bought 





C^ 1^,<:€^:^^ 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 4(;7 

wlieu lie could Ituy tlieiii clieaply, and lie has wisely held them till 
they have participated in the rise in values which marks the differ- 
ence hetween the California of the last half of the last century and 
the California of today. When he invested in them he very practi- 
cally i)rophesied that they would be worth much more in his time 
than they were worth tlien, and he has been spared to know that his 
prophecy was not idly made. His sjTnpathies with humanity, of 
his'h and low and intermediate degrees, made him a Republican in 
the days when men of his intellectual type cast their influence for 
the elimination of slavery from the United States, and through all 
its history, through all its changing issues, he has acted with that 
])arty ever since. All about him are evidences of his public spirit. 
Everywhere he goes he is greeted as a father and as a friend. He 
has been useful and in his declining years he is honored and happy 
and unfaltering in his faith in things to come. 



JOHN H. SMITPI 

A wide and diversified career has been that of John H. Smith, 
who was known as one of the oldest pioneers in the county. He was 
commonly called "Uncle John," his bright, cheerful and sunny dis- 
position making him a favorite of all who were fortunate enough to 
know him. Born at Grimstad, Norway, November 28, 1813, he was 
there reared, but lieing early imbued with a desire to follow the sea 
he followed this inclination and was but a boy when he shipped as a 
sailor, and for thirty-five years thereafter be endured the hards]ii]is 
as well as the joy of living on the water and visiting every port of 
interest in the world. His sea life took him often to the East In- 
dies, and he sailed around Cape Horn three times. It was in 1848 
that he decided to give up seafaring life and at that time he landed 
in New York, where reports of gold found in the west immediately 
fired him with ambition to go there. He set sail for California, going 
around Cape Horn, and in 1850 reached San Francisco. He became 
a gold miner and followed this vocation for some years with varying 
success until 1866, his operations being chiefly in Tuolumne county. 
Turning his attention to more positive means of livelihood, Mr. Smith 
removed from that county to Summerville, Contra Costa county, and 
there engaged in coal mining in the employ of the Pittsburg Coal 
Mining company, remaining with them until 1875. During this ser- 
vice a fire broke out in the mines and Mr. Smith evinced the most 
courageous spiiit in bravely entering info a Imrning shaft and rescu- 
ing se\"en men. For his heroism he received from his employers as 
a memento a handsome gold watch costing $2UU. This watch, pre- 



468 TULARE AXD KIXGS COUNTIES 

sented hhn by the ])resideiit of the mining company, is solid gold and 
engraved as i'oIk)ws: John II. Smitli, Pittsburg C. M. Co. For 
Noble Conduct iluring a fire at the Mine, Dec. 10th, 1871. 

Leaving the coal mines Mr. Smith came to the present homestead 
near Guernsey in 1875. Subseciuently he again engaged in coal min- 
ing at Coalinga, serving as superintendent of a coal mine for Messrs. 
Robinson & Rawlings, and it was while employed here that he lost 
his faithful wife and helpmate in 1889. The remainder of his life he 
spent engaged in farming and stockraising in company with his sons, 
Henry and AVilliam, at his home near Guernsey. Mr. Smith was well 
known for his honesty and kindly attitude toward everyone. Ener- 
getic and hardworking, when past eighty he performed his regular 
duties on the faiiii and he lived to attain a great age, his death 
occurring May li), 1;h)7, at which time he was probably tlie oldest 
man living in Kings county. 

On July 26, 1855, Mr. Smith was married at Sonora, Cal., to Anna 
Nilson, a native of Sweden. They became the parents of six sons 
and two daughters, as follows: George, born in 1856, died in in- 
fancy; William was born in 1858, and is a partner of Henry C, his 
brother; Albert, born in 1860, died in 1887; Emma, born in 1862, 
married Charles Freisch, of Traver, and died without issue in 1902; 
George (2), born in 1864, died in 1888; Henry C. is mentioned else- 
where in this publication; Matilda is the wife of Joseph Dalton, of 
Coalinga; she was born in 1867 and is the mother of seven children; 
Lewis, born in 1870' still owns an interest in the home ranch. Mr. 
Smith was i)articularly well known by all the people in the Lakeside 
country and was highly respected. His noble and loving character has 
ever been a l)eautiful exami)le of true living, and his influence for 
good was wide and strong, his memory being held dear by many who 
have just reason to honor his name and revere his memory. 



ALBERT a COLLINS 

One of the up-to-date and prosperous farmers of Tulare county, 
whose career has been one of progressive success, is Albert H. Collins, 
whose home is on the Tulare road, rural free delivery route No. 1, near 
Tulare city. Mr. Collins was born in Scotland county, Mo., March 2, 
1861, grew to manhood on his father's farm and was educated chiefly 
in the public school in his home district. In 1882, when he was 
twenty-one years old, he went to western Montana, where for a 
time he was a stock-raiser and afterward until 1892 a general mer- 
chant. Then he returned to his old home in Missouri, whence he 
came in 1894 to California. Renting land two miles west of Tulare, 



TULAKE AND KINGS COUNTIES 4()!i 

lie devoted himself to the production of wheat, alfalfa, vineyard and 
some miseellaneoiis crops nntil lie l)OU,itht his i)rescnt jilace, Wxc 
miles north of Tulare, where he has lived since 1I)()'_'. It is a 
fifty-acre ranch, which lie has ,i;i-eatly improved hy the planting 
of shade trees and otherwise. He has forty-live acres in alfalfa, 
maintains a dairy of twenty cows and keeps thirty-six head of 
beef cattle, the same number of hogs, five horses and four hundred 
white Leghorn hens. 

In 1889 Mr. Collins married Miss Emma Riley, a native of 
Missouri, and they iiave a son, Floyd W. Collins, who is now 
about ten years old. Mr. Collins was a charter member of the 
local lodge of the Woodmen of the World and of the local lodge 
of Women of Woodcraft, a sister order to the Woodmen of the 
World, and with which Mrs. Collins is also identified. He affiliates 
also in a fraternal way with Kaweah Tribe, Improved Order of 
Red Men, of Tulare. lie was one of the promoters of the Dairy- 
men's Co-operative Creamery and has been a stockholder in the 
company controlling it during its entii'e history. He is a director 
also in the Tulare Irrigation Ditch Company and has from time to 
time been identified with other iniportant interests. As a citizen 
he has met all demands on his patriotism with a ready liberality 
that has added not a little to .his popularity. 



JAMES MILTON SETLIFF 

On North F] street in Tulare lives James Milton Setliff, who is 
well and favorably known throughout Tulare county as a progres- 
sive and successful farmer and stockraiser. Mr. Setliff was born in 
Tennessee March 8, 18()4, and was reared on a farm and educated 
in the public schools there. When he was twenty-one years old he 
came to California, locating in Tulare, where he was employed for 
three years at carjaentering and doing farm work. He then began 
farming on rented land, taking a tract of two hundred acres a mile 
out of town and one hundred and sixty acres six miles southwest. 
On both of these propei-ties he raised grain. In the following spring. 
in partnership with two others, he rented four hundred acres four 
miles west of Pixley and raised grain with good success. Next year 
he farmed that land and six hundred and forty acres a mile south 
of it, which proved a splendid undertaking. The following season 
was dry and he lost everything, and the next s]iring found him work- 
ing for wages in an effort to recover. The year after, with a pai't- 
ner, he farmed seven hundred acres west of Waukena, near the 
Ai'tesia school house, and was a])le to market nothing but ten tons 
of hav. Durinsi' the succeeding vear he devoted himself to teaming. 



470 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

The following spring be seeded and planted forty acres near Paige, 
and in the fall he harvested fifteen tons of hay and four hundred and 
sixty-four sacks of grain. The subsequent year, with O. W. Grif- 
fith as a partner, he farmed seven hundred acres five miles south 
of Tulare and eighty acres of the Huff place near Paige. His next 
experience as a renter was on two hundred and forty acres of the 
Huff place and seven hundred and sixty acres in the section adjoin- 
ing it on the west, but he did not receive a great gain from this, and 
since 1906 he has farmed one hundred and ninety-five Huff acres 
and conducted a dairy on eighty acres of bis own land, milking thirty 
cows. Seventy acres of this tract, which he bought in 1896, are 
under alfalfa. In 1903 he bought sixty-four acres adjoining the Huff 
ranch, on which he keeps about two hundred and fifty hogs and 
breeds draft and driving horses. He has put eighty acres of the 
Huff land under alfalfa with a view to the establishment of a dairy- 
ing enterprise. He owns an interest in a thoroughbred Percherou 
stallion that cost $2,800 and has a good residence projierty in Tulare, 
to wliich city he moved in order to better educate his children. 

In 1891 Mr. Setliff married Miss Nannie Gully, a daughter of 
Bryant Gully, who lives eight miles south of Tulare, and she died 
in 1898, having borne him three children, Russel, Guy and Nannie. 
Russel has passed away. In 1901 he married Miss Lydia Garrett, 
a native of Mississippi, and to this union was born a son, Roland. 
Mr. Setliff was married a third time. On August 2, 1910, Mrs. 
Azaela Nicholson, of Tulare, liecame his wife. She is a daughter 
of Silas R. Gully, of Tulare. As a citizen Mr. Setliff takes a public- 
spirited interest in the community and in a fraternal way he affiliates 
with the Odd Fellows, the Elks and the Woodmen of the World. 



CHARLES EDWARD SMITH 

A native of the Prairie State who has made good in California is 
Charles Edward Smith, of Porterville, Tulare county. It was in 
Madison county. III., that he was born December 20, 1854. There 
he was educated and in the intervals of study acquired a i^ractical 
knowledge of farming. In young manhood, with his parents he went 
to Missouri, where he lived on a farm for about five years. After 
that he came to California, in the fall of 1886, locating in Tulare 
county and stojjped for a short time at Lemoore. Later he made 
his home in Tulare City and from there went to Kern county and 
pre-empted land on which he lived until he located his home at Porter- 
ville in 1891. There he acquired land which he eventually sold in 
order to engage in the grocery business. Thus he was employed 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 471 

for ten years, then he sold his interests at Porterville and moved 
to San Jose, the better to educate his children, and remained there 
tiiree years. When he first came to Porterville it was a mere hamlet 
of a few houses, with only some small business beginnin.sj,s of 
different kinds. P)y tlie time he removed to San Jose it had acquired 
considerable importance, and when he moved back in lOOG it was 
to a town something like the Inistling and ])r()si)erous Porterville 
of today. 

In April, 1S8:>, in (iirard, Kan., Mr. Smith married Miss Livonia 
Leach, a native of Clinton county, 111., born April 18, 1862, who has 
borne him four cliildien, three of whom are living. May jnarried 
James Large and is living in Ventura county. Bessie is a student 
at the Normal school at Fresno, and Eda is in tlie grammar school 
at Porterville. Henry Allen died when he was twenty months old. 
Mrs. Smith's parents, William A. and Letty (Smith) Leach, immi- 
grated to C'alifornia in 1892. Her father died here in 1!)07; her 
mother survives, aged eighty-six years. Mr. Smith's father, Edwin 
Smith, is living at the age of eighty-six, but his mother, Elizabeth 
(Robinson) Smith, has passed away. 

Fraternally Mr. Smith affiliates with the Odd Fellows' lodge and 
encampment. As a citizen he is liberally ])ublic-spirited, never failing 
to respond to any appeal in the interest of the public good. 



DAVID ANTHONY VAUGHN 

Few men in the vicinity of Porterville are in higher repute than 
David Anthony Vaughn, a brief account of whose career to this 
time is here given. He was born at East Greenwich, Kent county, 
R. I., October 7, 1846, a son of Caleb and Lydia (Hathaway) Vaughn, 
natives of the same town. Caleb Vaughn, who was born in 1816, 
and now ninety-seven years old, is still living there; his wife died 
in 1881. They had two sons and four daughters: David A., William, 
Pheby, Susan, Lydia and Addie. Pheby, Addie and William are 
living at East Greenwich. 

In May, 1868, Mr. Vaughn started for California by way of 
Panama, and arrived at San Francisco June 13, following. That 
same year in San Joaquin county, he leased a five hundred and ten- 
acre ranch and for three years engaged in stock-raising and wheat 
growing. In 1871 he moved to Porterville, Tulare county, where 
for twenty years he giivc his attention almost exclusively to sheep 
raising. During that period lie jiurchased about six thousand acres 
of land from individuals and from the Southern Pacific Railroad 
Company. He has sold three hundred and twenty acres of orange 



472 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

land, which is now being improved, and now owns fifty-three hundred 
and sixty acres, sixteen hundred acres of which is number one orange 
land. For the last thirty years he has grown wheat and raised cattle. 
In 1904, njion tlie organization of the First National Bank of Porter- 
ville, he was one of its original stockholders and he has since owned a 
considerable interest in the institution. In 1!)()7 he moved his family 
from his ranch to tlie city of Porterville, where he had bought a 
family residence at the intersection of Morton and D streets. He 
was elected mayor of Porterville in 1910 for a two-year term, after 
which he refused to again become a candidate. During his term of 
office he made a record as an able, honest and up-to-date executive. 
During all the years of his manhood he has been a Republican and 
he is still proiid to support the policies of that party. 

In 1880, at East Greenwich, R. I., Mr. Vaughn married Amanda 
M. Shippee, a daughter of Manser and Harriet Shippee. natives of 
that town. Mrs. Vaughn was educated in the public schools of East 
Greenwich, and came to California immediately after her marriage. 
L. U. Shippee, her uncle, had come to Stockton in 1853. Mrs. Vaughn's 
parents are both dead. She has two brothers and two sisters living 
in East Greenwich, R. I. Mr. and Mrs. Vaughn have two daughters, 
Minnie and Bessie. Minnie married J. S. Mc(iraliey, of Porterville. 
in 1903, and thev have a son named Earl. 



ROBERT M. SHOEMAKER 

New Jersey has been tlie mother state of many men who have 
achieved success in the West and on the Pacific coast. One such 
who has attained to high rank among the farmers of Tulare county is 
Robert M. Shoemaker, who is located four miles south of Lindsay. 
His parents were natives of New Jersey, descendants of old families 
in the East. Born in 1847, Mr. Shoemaker remained in his native 
state until 1905. There he was educated, farmed successfully and 
took a leading part in local political affairs, filling the offices of 
township conmiitteeman and supervisor for many years, until he 
came to California. There too, he married, in 1S75, Miss Sue 
Llewellyn, a native of that state, who bore him four children, three 
of whom are living. Two are married and settled for life in New 
Jersey, the other, E. O. Shoemaker, is a member of his parents' 
household. 

On coming to California, Mr. Shoemaker bought forty acres of 
raw land without any improvements. He has imjiroNed the place 
in many ways, adding to its productiveness and to its attractiveness 
as well. When Mr. Shoemaker came here in 1906 there was nothing 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 473 

to be seen but wild oats and hog wallows, and not a nelglihor within 
.a mile, except Mrs. Allen Ilunsicker, fi'om whom he liought. lie has 
now a l)eautifnl cottage 40x24, a liani, .■')()x40, pumping ])lant, pipe lines 
for irrigation ])urposes. 

His land is now planted as follows: Thirteen acres in Valencia 
oranges ; eight acres in navel oranges ; five acres in pomelos ; three 
acres in pomegranates; one aci'e in building spot, alfalfa, garden, 
etc. Mr. Shoemaker has sold off ten acres. He has, from the 
beginning of his residence here, taken a deep interest in the affairs 
of the county and state and was one of the promoters and organizers 
of the Chamber of Commerce of Strathmore, Cal. Politically he has 
always been allied with the Democracy, believing that through the 
policies of the Democratic party greater good can be brought to 
greater numbers of the people than in any other way. Fraternally 
he affiliates with the Knights of the Golden Eagle, being a member 
of the Pitman Grove, N. J., organization of that order, and is a charter 
member of the Junior Order of American Mechanics at Pitman Grove, 
New Jersey. 



SCHIMMEL BROTHERS 

There are not in the vicinity of Tulare two men better or more 
favorably known than the brothers F. C. and A. R. Sehimmel, who 
live eight miles west of the city on the Paige Switch road. F. C. 
Sehimmel is a native of Yamhill county, Ore., while A. R. Sehimmel 
was born in Portland in the same state. Their parents farmed for 
a time near Portland, then engaged in milling and the lumber busi- 
ness in southern Oregon until 1901, when they disposed of their in- 
terests there and came to Kings county and farmed four years with 
W. H. Wilbur, of Alpaugh. In 1905 the brothers bought a tract of 
nine hundred and sixty aci-es of land six miles west and two miles 
south of Tulare, on which they have made all the improvements, 
including a residence, barns, ordinary fencing and hog-tight fence 
and two artesian wells. Their irrigation is largely su] (plied from 
the Packwood ditch, in wliicli they own four hundred and fifty-two 
shares. Four hundred acres of their land is in alfalfa and one hnu- 
dred is under irrigation. The feature of their business is the breed- 
ing of mules, for which they kee]) two jacks and one hundred mares 
for breeding purposes only, and lliey give special attention to the 
raising of hogs. T'esides the operation of the property just de- 
scribed they fai'iii six thousand acies near Angiola. devoting the en- 
tire tract to grain. They use a Holt machine and mules and also a 
harvester; at times they have harvested for others near by, but they 
have decided to confine their work of this kind to their own lands 



474 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

in the future. They employ ten men in season and keep about forty 
head of work stock. 

In October, 1906, F. C. Schimmel married Fannie Garrison of 
Oregon. Both of the Schimmel brothers are members of Tulare 
lodge No. 1484, F. 0. E., and F. C. Schimmel affiliates with the Tulare 
organization of the Woodmen of the World. They are popular so- 
cially and are welcomed in business circles as men of enterprise and 
of tried and dependable pulilic spirit. 



W. J. SMITH 

In Montgomery county, Mo., W. J. Smith was born July 31, 
1844, the son of M. II. and Rebecca (Eperson) Smith, natives respec- 
tively of Virginia and of Kentucky. His father passed away nearly 
thirty years ago and his mother, who married very young, died when 
she was but tliirty-three years old. W. J. Smith was early taken to 
Audrain county, Mo., where he lived until he was eighteen years 
old, obtaining an education in common schools and accustoming him- 
self to ijroductive labor. At the age above mentioned he came over- 
land to California with a wagon train of emigrants under the leader- 
ship of Captain Allen, taking his turn at standing guard whenever 
the party camped. His father and mother were of the party. The 
family halted at Marysville, then located at Knights Landing, where 
they lived from 1863 to 1872. In Modoc county Mr. Smith filed on 
public land on which he lived about fourteen years, and early in 
his residence there he and his wife were called upon to brave the 
terrors of the historic Modoc war. From Modoc county he came to 
Tulare county and bought one hundred and sixty acres of land near 
Red Banks. He is now the owner of forty acres, five acres of this 
being under orange trees, the balance devoted to peaches, apricots, 
miscellaneous fruits and grapes. His ranch is well supplied with 
buildings and all essentials to successful cultivation and he keeps six 
to eight horses. As a citizen he is influentially helpful, and in politics 
he is independent. He became a member of the Independent Order 
of Odd Fellows while a resident of Modoc county, and it was there 
too that he married. The lady who became his wife was Miss 
Florence Warren, a native of Oregon, and she has borne him ten 
children, Emma, James, Frank, Viola, Steward, Wilbert, Earl, Essie, 
Charles and Delma. Steward and Essie have passed away; James 
married Bertha Swan, and they and their son make their home at 
Red Banks; Emma became the wife of Elmer Brotherton of Visaiia 
and has borne him six children; Frank, of Wood Lake Valley, married 
Lena Ganes; Viola married August Woodward of Tulare. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 477 

GEORGE WOOD 

Men of English birth who have won success in California are 
numerous, and among them one wliose career is properly within the 
scope of this work is George Wood, farmer and president of the 
Tulare Eucalj'ptus Company. Mr. Wood was born on the British 
isle, November 2, 1861. In 1884, when he was twenty-three years 
old, he came to Saskatchewan, Canada, and homesteaded land, which 
he improved until 1888. Then he disposed of liis interests there 
and during the succeeding seven years farmed and raised stock in 
Ward county, N. Dak. Subsequently until 1909 he lived in McKenzie 
county, N. Dak., where he took up one hundred and sixty acres of 
land and started in to raise sheep and cattle. In 1906, however, he 
sold off his stock, and after that he devoted himself to farming until 
he settled in California. In 1907 he visited Tulare county, Cal., 
and with a partner bouglit one bundled and thirty-two acres of land, 
of which he eventually retained sixty-nine acres. Since he located 
here he has made improvements on the property and has put forty 
acres under alfalfa and intends to handle the balance of the tract 
in the same way. His principal business is in growing hay, and he 
keeps little stock beyond what is necessary to ojierate his farm. 

In 1889 Mr. AYood married Miss Caroline E. Jones, an English 
woman, and they have four children, Arthur, Maggie, Frank and 
George. Maggie is the wife of Roy N. Johnson, of North Dakota. 
Mr. Wood knows farming as well as any man in his vicinity and his 
farm is sufficient evidence of that fact. He has achieved his success 
in life by wise planning and hard work. His interest in the com- 
munity with which he has cast his lot impels him to a course which 
marks him as a citizen of much public spirit. 



CHARLES F. BLASWICK 

A Californian born and bred, Charles F. Blaswick was born 
October 4, 1857, in Plumas countj', and he was taken l)y his parents 
to Colusa, then to Yuba county. From Yuba county he came to Tu- 
lare in 1886, and for the succeeding fourteen years he was em]>loyed 
continuously on the ranch of Joseph LaMarche. During tliat time 
he lived on the place, worked steadily and saved his money, and in 
1900 lie bought one hundred and twenty acres on which was a small 
house and barn, and soon thereafter had built an addition to tlie 
residence, fenced the land and put in a dairy of thirty or forty cows 
and was breeding horses and hogs and making a specialty of ])ouItry. 
In these lines he has continued till the ])resent time. Much of his 
land is used for pasture. At the present time he is putting in eiglity 



478 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

acres of alfalfa, and has installed electric lighting for his house and 
premises. He obtains water for domestic purposes by means of an 
artesian well with a six-inch pipe and for irrigation from two large 
wells, one a fifty-eight-footer, the other an eighty-footer, the jDumps 
in which are operated by one gasoline motor, one hundred inches of 
water being produced. Mr. Blaswick also raises stock on a small 
scale. His sons, William and Frederick, rent three hundred and 
twenty acres of the Gibson ranch, operate a dairy on the property 
and have one hundred and twenty acres in alfalfa and two hundred 
in grain. They rent also one hundred and sixty acres of the Birch 
Williams ranch, all of which is devoted to grain raising. 

The Dairpnen's Co-operative Creamery Company of Tulare 
numbers Mr. Blaswick among its stockholders. He affiliates with the 
Tulare lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and is a 
regular and social member of the Tulare organization of the Wood- 
men of the World. His sons are identified with the Woodmen of 
the World and the Fraternal Brotherhood, his daiighter Wilhelmina 
with the last mentioned order and Mrs. Blaswick with the order of 
Fraternal Aid. 

Mr. Blaswick married, Novemlier 27, 1884, Miss Anna Malile. a 
native of Yuba county, Cal., and they have four daughters and two 
sons. William and Frederick are ranchers, and the latter married 
Winifred Kessell. Wilhelmina married Elmer Berkerhoff and re- 
sides in Tulare county. Mary Ann, Allie and Leona are members of 
their parents' household. 



ROBERT 0. NEWMAN 

In North Carolina was liorn Jacob Newman, son of a ]iatriot of 
the war of 1812. He settled at Booneville, Mo., in 1821, and was a 
farmer and distiller, his distillery having stood a mile from the 
Missouri river. He went to Texas in 1854, and lived out his days at 
Port Sullivan. His son Jesse G. Newman was born at Booneville, 
Mo., grew up there, married and went to work as a farmer. In 
1849 he turned his back on Booneville and, crossing the plaius with 
ox-team, mined on Feather river, Cal. In 1852 he went back to Boone- 
ville, where he died, aged fifty-two years. A man of ability, he was 
judge of Cooper county. Mo., eight years and was for a time cajitaiu 
of a company of Missouri Home Guards in the Federal service in 
the Ci^■il war. He was well known as an Odd Fellow. He married 
Elizabeth Plill, a native of Kentucky, daughter of James Hill, a 
Mississippian by birth, and an early settler and pioneer farmer at 
Booneville. Mr. Hill was sheriff of Cooper county and died there. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 479 

after a life of activity aud usefulness. Mrs. Newmau survived her 
husband and eventually passed away in Tulare county. Of their 
twelve children, six are living: Robert Oscar, whose name is above; 
Jesse H. ; Harry Hill; Prank; Fannie, wife of George P. Robinson 
of Nevada; aud Maggie, widow of the late Marion Grove, of Visalia. 

The birtli of Robert Oscar Newman occurred July 4, 1848, in 
Booneville, Mo. There he was brought up to the life of a farmer's 
boy and educated in a district school, the Booneville school and Alli- 
son's Academy for Boys in that town. In the Civil War he served 
as a member of his father's company, which was called out during 
Shelby's raid in 1863 and Price's raid in 1864. Price came to 
Booneville with thirty thousand men, and as there were only a hun- 
dred and fifty men in the Home Guards, the latter was forced to sur- 
render, but its men were paroled three days later. After the war 
Mr. Newman farmed on the Newman place, near Booneville, till he 
was twenty-three years old. Then, in 1871, he went to Elko, Nev., 
where for two years he teamed in the mountains. After the death 
of his fathci' he retuiued to Missouri and conducted the home farm 
for his mother till in 1882, when he purchased an adjoining farm, 
which he sold two years later in order to come to Tulare county, Cal. 
Soon after his arrival he rented laud on the Cottonwood and went 
into wheat growing, having in charge four thousand acres of the 
Fielding Bacon holdings, running a big farming outfit which included 
seven eight-mule teams. By 1892 he had accumulated $25,000, but the 
financial stringency of 1893 and the reverses of several dry seasons 
made him as poor as he had been at the beginning of these extensive 
operations. 

In 1898 Mr. Newman settled on his pi-esent home property, then 
known as the old Morgan Beard ranch. His property now includes 
three hundred acres devoted to grain and alfalfa and six hundred 
and forty acres of the Fielding Bacon land. His specialty is the 
raising of fine trotting stock, and he is conspicuous as the dealer in 
Tulare county who invariably offers regular Standard bred horses. 
He has produced more record horses than any other man in the San 
Joaquin valley, among which have been the following: Robert Basler, 
2.20, by Antebolo, 2.19, son of Electioneer, his dam being Elizabeth 
Basler; De Bernardi Basler, 2.I614, by Robert Basler; Ida Maj^ by 
Grosvenor, the dam of Homeward, 2.131^,, by Strathway, sired George 
G., 2.0514; Dr. W., 2.181/4, by Robert Basler; Jonesa "Basler, 2.05-%, 
by Robert Basler; Stoneway, 2.22, by Strathway, 2.19, whose dam 
was Elizabeth Basler; sired Myway, 2.151/4; Stoneletta, 2.151/4 at 
two years old. He owns at present Robert Direct, ten years old, by 
Direct, 2.05V:;, dam Daisy Basler, by Robert Basler, one of the finest 
bred horses in the United States; Dew Drop Basler, by Robert 
Basler; Ida May, by Grosvenor; Daisy Basler, by Robert Basler; 



480 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Wedding Bells, by Robert Easier ; all fine Standard bred luares. Mr. 
Newman is reputed to be one of the best judges of horses in America. 
For a time he dealt also in cattle and was the owner of a splendid 
herd of Jersey cows. 

At Booneville, Mo., Mr. Newman married Frances Ziegel, daugh- 
ter of Andrew Ziegel, an early settler, farmer and tanner in Missouri, 
and they have seven children : Grace, wife of Henry J. L^Tiuan, Hilo, 
Hawaii ; Walter, a graduate of the University of California ; Tracy, a 
merchant at Portland, Oregon; Elizabeth, a trained nurse, at Hono- 
lulu; Nellie, a graduate of the Visalia high school; Robert 0., Jr.. 
who was educated at the University of CaUfornia; Lola, a graduate 
of the Visalia high school. Mr. Newman is a Democrat and has been 
useful to his party in Tulare county by his long service as a member 
of the county central committee. He advocates all measures which, 
iu his opinion, promise to benefit any considerable number of his 
worthy fellow citizens, and, taken all in all, is one of the most i)rom- 
inent, substantial and useful citizens of his part of the state. 



LOWERY B. KING 

Among the progressive and prosperous Missourians who are 
making a record of success in Central California is L. B. King of 
Tulare county, whose ranch is on rural free delivery route No. 1, 
out of Visalia. Mr. King was born iu Buchanan county, in the 
state mentioned, March 5, 1865, a son of James W. and Elizabeth J. 
(Jones) King. He was reared and educated and taught farming in 
his native state as it was practiced there, and in 1886, when he was 
twenty-one years old, he came to California and settled near Visalia 
and for five years leased and operated a ranch belonging to Sands 
Baker. 

Later Mr. King farmed land iu the Kaweah Swamp district for 
several years, raising potatoes and other crops which yielded good 
returns. Then, responding to the call of the east, he went to Okla- 
homa and Missouri and tried to farm there, but was driven liack 
to California by destructive droughts; and here he has been content 
to remain ever since; here he firmly believes he will live out his 
allotted days on earth. For a time after his return he was foreman 
on the Kane ranch in Tulare county. Since January, 1007. he has 
farmed a one hundred and twenty acre ranch owned by Sands Baker, 
his father-in-law, which includes a profitable dairy of thirty-five 
cows. He gives attention to the breeding of horses and has several 
good brood mares which invariably raise fine colts. Hogs and chickens 
are a source of revenue to him; he has forty acres of alfalfa and a 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 481 

S'ardeu. All in all, lie is one of the really successful farmers of his 
part of the county. As a citizen he is public-spiritedly heli^ful. 
Fraternally he affiliates with the Woodmen of the World and the 
Modern Woodmen of America. While lie has never been particularly 
active in political work, he is alert and patriotic in the performance 
of his duties as a voter and has ably tilled the office of clerk of the 
school board of the Union district and the office of school trustee. 

In 1892 Mr. King married Miss Mattie Baker, a native of Fresno 
county, and they have four children, Ethel F., Lauris M., Sands E. 
and Helen B. Lauris M. was graduated at fourteen from the ITnion 
High School, took a course at a boarding school in Los Angeles, and 
is now attending the Visalia high school. 



SAMUEL A. BREWER 

The prosperous rancher whose name is sufficient to direct the 
attention of the reader to this notice had lived in Kings county since 
1873 and is one of the best known tillers of the soil and breeders of 
fine stock and poultry in all the country round about Hanford. Born 
at Coyote, Santa Clara county, Cal., March 8, 1867, he attended pub- 
lic schools until he was nineteen years old, then working on the ranch 
for his father until he was twenty-three, at which age he entered 
u]3on an independent career. It will be noted that he was only six 
years old when his family settled in Tulare county, in that ])art now 
known as Kings, and that he has lived here practically all his life. 
His first land purchase was one of twenty-one and one-quarter 
acres, but he rented and ran in connection with it the old Dillon 
place. This arrangement lasted but a year, however, for at the 
beginning of his second season he settled on his liome place and 
))ranched out in the raising of cattle, hogs and chickens. Six years 
later he added to his holding by the purchase of another twenty-one 
acres, and b.y subsequent purchases has brought the area of his ranch 
up to eighty-five acres, well stocked, well provided with Imildings, 
machinery and apjjliances, and exceptionally well tilled. In recent 
years Mr. Brewer has devoted himself particularly to dairying and 
to hog-raising. 

In 1!K)8, as an experiment, Mr. Brewer i)ut in four acres of 
sugar beets and from that ])lanting secured sixty-two tons, which 
netted him $164, showing that, all things being equal, this is a 
profitable crop. He brought the first beet-drill to his ranch, the 
first cultivator, plowed the first beets and put the first beets in the 
car at Odessa. He was successful, following directions given to see 
what the ])ossibilities were. 



4SL' TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Jamiiiiy 18, ISiUl, Mr. Brewer married Miss Elitie Webber, who 
was born in Newport, Pa., June 22, 1871, and they have three chil- 
dren living, whom they have named Harry A., Ethel M. and Clara L. 
One child died in infancy. While he is not very active politically, 
Mr. Brewer takes a broad view of all econouiic questions and loyally 
performs his duties as a citizen. He has never sought office, nor has 
he ever acce])ted it exce])t in one instance, when he consented to 
become a school trustee, in which capacity lie labored etfectively for 
local education during a period of six -years. His public spirit has 
been many times tried and never found wanting and his influence 
is always exerted for the amelioration of the conditions under which 
he and his neighbors must work ami li\e. He is a member of the 
Independent Order of Odd Fellows and of the Fraternal Brother- 
hood. 



HENRY BERTCH 

An up-to-date and prominent dairyman of Tulare is Henry 
Bertch, who was born November 11, 1857, in Erie county, N. Y., 
twelve miles from Buffalo. There he followed the life of a farmer's 
general boy, gaining an education in the public schools, and he re- 
mained there until 1884, when he was twenty-seven years old. Com- 
ing then to Tulare county, Cal., he readily found farm work. 
He homesteaded one hundred and sixty acres and in 1885 bought one 
hundred and sixty acres more near Delano, in Kern county. These 
tracts he farmed six years without any adequate returns, suffering 
losses because of dry seasons. Later until 1895 he worked a rented 
farm in Tulare county, and then leased an adjoining farm and con- 
trolled an aggregate of three hundred and twenty acres, which he 
operated until 1898. In that year he bought one hundred and sixty 
acres eight miles west of Tulare, on which he made improvements, 
enclosing five fields with hog-tight fences. He planted three acres 
to orchard and gave fifty acres to alfalfa. He now has a dairy of 
twelve cows and devotes sixty-five acres of his land to grain and the 
balance to pasture. He has put down a well one hundred and seven 
feet deep for irrigation, which is fitted with a six-inch pump, the 
motor power of which is a fifteen horse-]K)wer gasoline engine, and 
a seventy-foot well for domestic uses. Dairying is perhaps his chief 
business aside from farming, and he is a stockholder in the Dairy- 
men's Co-operative Creamery at Tulare. 

In 1903 Mr. Bertch married Harriet Hoffman. Socially he affili- 
ates with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, being a member 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 48?, 

bf the Tulare lodge. As a farmer he is well informed on all sub- 
jects pertaining to that vocation, being considered an authority. 
His public spirit is of a quality that makes him a most useful citizen. 



ORLANDO D. BARTON 

A great-grandson of a soldier of the Revolutionary war and a 
grandson of a soldier of the war of 1812, his progenitors in the pa- 
ternal line, Orlando D. Barton was born in La Salle county. 111., in 
1847, a son of James and Susan (Davenport) Barton, natives of Mor- 
ris county, N. J., the former born November 2, 1819, and the latter 
on October 30, 1823. James Barton crossed the plains with his fam- 
ily in 1865, following the North Platte river route to Salt Lake and 
the Austin & Walker's lake route from there on. The Sioux Indians 
were then at war and caused the train of which the Bartons were 
members considerable trouble. However, the family arrived safely at 
Visalia October 6, that year, and camped near the present site of the 
Santa Fe depot. The father took up land at the site of Auckland 
and raised cattle there on four hundred and forty acres for fourteen 
years. In 1879 he moved to Three Rivers, where he lived until his 
death, September 2, 1912, except during the periods of his incum- 
bency of the office of supervisor of Tulare county, when his home 
was in . Visalia. 

The elder Mr. Barton was honored by election to the office in 
the county for fi\-e terms and was prominent in the management of 
county affairs. The court house was built under his supervision 
and he had charge of the erection of the old and the new county 
jails. He reached the advanced age of ninety-two years ' and ten 
months, his wife dying tTanuary 19, 1912, aged eighty-eight years 
and two months, and died on the sixty-ninth anniversary of their 
marriage. Both were honored as pioneers who braved the hardships 
of the overland trail to pave the way for the present civilization of 
California. Of their children we mention the following: Hudson D. 
married Sarah Harmon and they have six children — James, who 
married Nellie St. Clair and has two daughters; Frank, who mar- 
ried Miss Foucht, who has boi'ne him two children; Albertus, who 
married Miss Downing and has three children; and Royal V., Hugh 
and Orlena. Orlando D. is the immediate subject of this sketch. 
Enos D. was the next in order of ])irth. Jane married J. B. Weath- 
ers, of A^isalia, and they Jiave two children, Grover and Mrs. Carrie 
Sweet. Adelaide is the wife of J. H. Butts, of Hanford, and they 
have two children, Dell and Mrs. Ida Hamilton. Melissa married 
R. C. Hardin of Visalia and they have three children, Norman, Mrs. 



484 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Blanche Young aud Beujamiu. James and Susan (Davenport) Bar- 
ton had, all counted, about fifty descendants. 

It is as a writer that Orlando D. Barton is perhaps ))est known, 
his articles about the Indians and other western subjects having been 
widely read. In the days of his youth he ranched with his father 
and brothers, helped to build sawmills and to get out lumber in the 
mountains, and taught three terms of school in the Cottonwood dis- 
trict. Later he settled on a ranch at Three Rivers, which is now 
the site of the River Iijn, and raised cattle and hogs there eight 
years. In the period since he has been interested in mining and oil, 
being a practical mineralogist of many years' study and experience. 
He is the owner of quite extensive oil interests in the Lost Hills and 
in the Devil's Den mining district of Kern and Kings counties. 

In 1880 Mr. Barton married Miss Maggie Allen, a native of 
California, who died in 1888, leaving two children. Their daughter 
Phoebe, wife of Alexander McLennan, of Visalia. has a son. Their 
son Cornelius is employed by the San Joaquin Light and Power 
Company. 



ASA T. GRIFFIN 

As soldier, farmer and citizen Asa T. Griffin has won the re- 
spect of all with whom he has from time to time been associated. 
He was born in Cooper county. Mo., August 8, 1842. and from there 
his family soon afterward moved to Benton county, where he grew 
up. In 1861, when lie was only nineteen years old, he enlisted in 
the Sixty-foTirth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and served 
until the close of the Civil war, when he was nmstered out at Louis- 
^'i^e, Ky., in July, 1865. He took part in much historic fighting, 
including that at New Madrid, the siege and battle of Corinth, and 
later served under General Sherman in the South. Going back to 
his old home, he soon afterward located in St. Clair county. III., 
where he farmed successfully. 

In 1873 Mr. Griffin came to California and settled in Tulare 
county, and since that time he has lieen ranching near Visalia. 
Formerly he gave attention especially to cattle and to dairying, but 
now he owns twenty acres four miles southwest of AHsalia. ten acres 
of which is in Muir and Lovell peaches, another ten in alfalfa. Since 
1906 he has been a rural mail carrier, delivering mail from Visalia 
over part of route No. 1. His service as a soldier makes him eligilile 
to membershi]) in the Grand Army of the Rejiublic, and in his post 
he is active and helpful. March 9, 1869, Mr. Griffin married Miss 
Ann Esther Preston, born Februarv 2, 1849, in St. Clair county. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 489 

Mo. They have had six children : Mrs. Margaret Elizabeth Collins, 
deceased ; James M. ; George P., also deceased ; and Benjamin, 
Thomas and Bernard. 

It will be seen tiiat the Griffins have been pioneers, generation 
after generation. Mr. Griffin's grandfather Griffin settled in How- 
ard county. Mo., in 1817, and his forefathers were pioneers further 
east. Mr. Griffin is a citizen of helpful impulses, who, in dit¥erent 
ways, has done much for the gonei'al good. The patriotic spirit that 
impelled him as a mere boy to risk his life for the preservation 
of the union of the states has directed him along the ways of public 
usefulness ever .since, wherever he has cast his lot. 



LINCOLN HENRY BYRON 

One of the progressive and up-to-date business men of Lemoore 
is Lincoln Henry Byron, who was born in 1866, in Contra Costa 
county, Cal. In 1868 he was brought by his ]iarents to Lemoore, 
Kings county, where he has since lived and which is now his head- 
quarters for the automobile agency, the success of which has made 
him well known throughout this ]>art of the state. He was educated 
in the public schools of Lemoore and in the University of the Pacific 
at San Jose, and then engaged in farming on the lake bottoms near 
the lake, where, in association with his father for seven years, he 
operated twenty-seven hundred acres. For two years thereafter he 
was in the livery business at Los Angeles, and the next two years 
he spent as proprietor and manager of the Germania hotel at .Ox- 
nard. Returning to Kings county he was for two years engaged in 
boring wells for water, and during the next four years he was a 
traveling agent for the Watkins Medicine compa7iy, with headquarters 
at Vancouver, Clark county. Wash. Then coming again to Lemoore, 
he bought, in 1906, the Joseiih Marriott homestead of eighty acres 
which he developed into a tine vineyard, meantime devoting part of 
his time to dealing in horses and selling tents and awnings. In 1911 
he bought a half interest in the Lemoore garage. He is the agent 
for the Ford auto for the western half of Kings county, including 
Lemoore and Coalinga and their tributary territory, and so suc- 
cessful has he been in handling this car, which ranks among the 
best, that he sold twenty-oiu' machines lietween October ."Jl and Feb- 
luary 10 following, i^'icim time to time other interests have com- 
manded his attention and he has invested in oil land in the Devil's 
Den country and is ])romoting the oil development in that field. 

In 1887 Mr. Byron married Julia Bozeman and they have three 
children. Their daughter Bertha is the wife of Louis Buike of 



486 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Coalinga, and their sons, Carl and Lawrence, are students in the 
liigh school at Lemoore. As a family the Byrons are popular 
wherever they are known. Their circle of acquaintance is wide and 
constantly extending and their influence in all their relations is 
exerted for the uplift of the commixnity. Mr. Byron is a member of 
the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. 



ARTHUR G. DALY 

This native son of the Golden State was born in Lake county 
May 20, 1858, a son of Patrick M. and Mary E. (O'Hara) Daly, 
natives, respectively, of Ireland and of New York. The elder Daly 
came to California, by way of Cape Horn, in 1848, and was the first 
bottler of porter in San Francisco. He was long in tlie cattle trade 
and in the pork packing business in the employ of Ruth, Brum & 
Company, and later bred cattle in Lake county until 1906, when he 
died. His wife had passed away December 20, 1881. Of their chil- 
dren the following survive : James P., of Exeter ; Dennis B., of Yokolil 
valley, Tulare county; Mrs. Maggie Clancy, of San Francisco; and 
Arthur G., of Visalia, who is the immediate subject of this notice. 
The father was one of the organizers of the Ancient Order of United 
"Workmen in Lake county, and was otherwise active and influential. 

It was in Lake county, Cal., that Arthur G. Daly was reared and 
educated, his book studies having been prosecuted in public scliools 
near his boyhood home. In 1882 he went to Ashland, Ore., and 
engaged in the sheep-raising industry. He came to the Yokohl val- 
ley in 1888, and for a number of years raised cattle on a ranch of 
seven hundred and fifty acres. In 1904 he bought one hundred and 
sixty acres near Farmersville at $25 an acre and im]iroved it and 
subsequently sold it at $90 an acre, a price that afforded him a fine 
profit. His present home farm of three hundred and twenty acres, 
three miles north of ^'isalia, he purchased December 1, 1907. Eighty 
acres of it is in alfalfa, and he raises many hogs, cattle and fine 
horses and has a dairy of thirty cows. 

Mr. Daly married Mrs. (Lee) Smith, a native of California. 
March 27, 1890. William Lee, her father, was an overland iiioneer 
in California in 1849, making the journey with ox-teams. He was 
born in Virginia and reared in Missouri, and had been a brave sol- 
dier in the Mexican war. For some years after he came to California 
he teamed in San Francisco, Fresno, Stockton and Sacramento. Then 
he came to Tulare county and got into the cattle business, in which 
he was active and successful around Visalia for many years. His 
death, April 24, 1892, was sincerely mourned by family, by friends, 
b>- all who had come within the influence of his personality. His 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 487 

recollections of the west went back to the real pioneer days, the 
days of the miners, the outlaws and the vigilantes, of Indians and 
of the stern white men who risked their lives to defend their women 
and children against savage raids. He had done his part in Indian 
fighting- and had known many of those bold spirits who had made a 
profession of fighting the redskins. Of his children, the following 
named were living in 1912 : Joseph, Charles, Mrs. Mary Dnmout and 
Mrs. Arthur 6. Daly. 

With Exeter lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows Mr. 
Daly is identified. He takes a helpful interest in all that pertains 
to the advancement of the people among whom he lives, is intelli- 
gently concerned in all i)ublic affairs and may be counted upon to 
be on the sane and patriotic side of any question of economic im- 
port. 



JOHN H. HAUSCHILDT 

New York has sent to California many men who have been an 
acquisition to its citizenship, efficient in the promotion of its impor- 
tant business interests and helpful in numerous directions. Among 
men of this class who are well known in the vicinity of Tulare, Tu- 
lare county, is John H. Hauschildt, a native of New York City, born 
August 20, 1869. As a youth he was taken to Kansas, where he lived 
until 1894, acquiring an education and farming and working in gen- 
eral merchandise stores. The Cherokee Strip in Oklahoma was 
opened September 16, 1893. He went down there from Kansas in 
1894 and secured eighty acres, to the development of which he gave 
the ensuing three years and a half. Then he was in the Indian ser- 
vice six years and a half, until in 1904, when the state of his health 
impelled him to seek the climate of California. He came on here, 
and Ainil 18, 1906, inade his first land jiurchase in the state. It 
consisted of eighty acres of orchard, located six miles northwest of 
Tulare. In October, 1907, he bought twenty acres two miles west of 
Tulare, on the Hanfoi'd road, and here he has eighteen acres in 
alfalfa, a dairy of ten cows, many cattle and hogs and five hundred 
hens. As to his eighty acres, he disposed of the peach orchard and 
devoted twenty-five acres to prunes and fifteen acres to Muscat 
grapes and ])ut the remaining forty acres under alfalfa. This prop- 
erty he lets out for a cash rental. 

In 1896 Mr. Hauschildt married Miss Nora Hanson, of Kansas, 
and tliey have a son, Carl Hauscliiidt, who is a ' meinbei- of tlieir 
household. Tlie family are of the congregation of the Methodist 
Episcdjial cbiircli at Tiilaic and IVfr. Hauschildt is iJi-omiiient in the 



488 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

affairs of the organization, filling the office of steward and acting 
as choirmaster. Believing in the idea that the human race should 
advance and that the place in which to begin all good work is at 
home, he gives generous aid to all efforts for the uplift of the com- 
munity. 



F. A. THOMAS 

A native son of Tulare county, one of the comparatively few 
elder ones who are leaders there now, F. A. Thomas was born Octo- 
ber 6, 1858, a son of William and Mary A. ( Jordan-Courtner) Thom- 
as. His father came across the ])lains from the east in 1852 and 
settled in San Bernardino county, whence he moved to Tulare county. 
His first marriage was to Eda Hall, who bore him a daughter named 
Adilla. Mary A. Jordan married William C'ourtner, and they came 
across the plains from Texas with ox-teams in 1847, John Jordan, 
father of Mary A. and grandfather of F. A. Thomas, having been 
captain of the train. After an eventful and wearisome journey of 
six months, they arrived in San Joaquin county, and there Mr. Jor- 
dan and Mr. Courtner passed away. The following are the names 
of the children of William and Mary A. (Jordan) Courtner: Eli, 
Jennie E., Lee C, James, Mary. Alice E., Ellis T., Preston B. and 
Melissa (who died in infancy). James is also deceased. 

All his life Mr. Thomas has farmed and raised stock. That he 
has prospered may be inferred from the fact that he owns one hun- 
dred and ten city lots in Tulare, eighty acres of timber land, twenty- 
eight acres of orange grove, an interest in the Courtner sawmills in 
the mountains, and he has recently sold twenty-two hundred acres 
of land in Drum valley. He freights lumber from his mill to Tulare, 
fifty-eight miles. His experiences in this part of the state compass 
the entire period of its modern development. He remembers well the 
killing by Digger Indians of Pioneer Woods and was well acquainted 
with Evans and Sontag and other celebrated characters whose names 
are identified with the earlier history of central California and has 
been on the spot where the two desperadoes mentioned were cap- 
tured, and had often hunted on the plains and in the woods and was 
one time treed l)y wild hogs. Among others whom he knew in earlier 
davs was Mr. Breckenridge, who was killed by Indians in Eshom 
valley, and it was since he came that the Dalton brothers had their 
short but eventful career in this part of the country. Politically he 
early affiliated with the Democratic party. He was a charter mem- 
ber of a local organization of the Woodmen of the World of Visalia. 
He has been very ])rominent in many movements for the benefit of the 
communitv, in which he is well known. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 489 

RICHARD CHATTEN 

The Chatteii family, whieli for years was worthily represented 
in Visalia by the late Richard Chatten and now by his son Thomas 
A. Chatten, is prominent in Ontario, Canada, where Richard Chatten 
was born, December 11, 18l'(). Of English origin they have lived in 
Canada since the Colonial times, and here Mr. Chatten was reared 
to manhood, working in the lumber woods there and in the northern 
part of the United States. His educational training was ]5rocured 
in the common schools of Canada and New York, and in 1849 he 
returned to Canada for a short time. Anxious to see other parts 
of the world and find a more encouraging field for his labors he 
decided to seek the western country, and accordingly made his way 
to St. Louis, Mo., working as a river raftsman, rafting logs from 
the Wisconsin jiine woods, and at the age of twenty-seven years he 
was residing in that city. In the spring of 1850, in company with 
others, he outfitted seven ox-wagons and started overland for Cali- 
fornia, eager to try their fortunes with the rest of the gold-seekers. 
Taking a southern route they traveled through the state of Texas, 
and while there Mr. C-hatten met his future wife, who was Margaret 
Glenn, daughter of Alexander and Eleanor Glenn, who were also on 
their way to the coast, and tliey accordingly joined their trains and 
traveled the remaining distance together. On the way the Indians 
stole several head of tlieii' cattle, but the animals were so tired from 
their long trii> that they could not be driven fast enough and the 
party recovered them. They stopped at Salt Lake city for three 
weeks to rest and two weeks of this time Mr. Chatten was employed 
by Brigham Young, for which he was amply paid. The i)arty finally 
arrived in Los Angeles in the fall of the year, and Mr. Chatten and 
the four Glenn boys pushed on to what was then Sonora county, 
where they engaged in placer-mining near Mariposa, where he met 
with some success and after working there for a year and a half 
returned to Los Angeles, where he purchased about two hundred 
head of cattle, and this was the start of his extensive stock busi- 
ness. 

Driving his cattle about nine miles west of Visalia he settled 
there for a time, and was married there in the home of John C. Reed 
(in January 12, 1854, to Margaret Glenn, above mentioned. They 
siiffereil many hardshijis thi-ough the troublesome Indians and as busi- 
ness often took Mr. Chatten to Stockton and Los Angeles he was 
comi)elled to bring his wife to Visalia foi- protection during liis ab- 
sence. He came to ^^isalia in 1886 and that city had in him a wide- 
awake, industrious citizen until his death, which occurred there Aug- 
ust 12, 1896. He pros]>ered in his stock business by his clevei- 
management and untiring perseverance, and added to his projterty 



490 TUJ.ARE AND KINGS COUXTIES 

from time to time imtil he became one of the largest hindholders 
in the vicinity. He owned the Mineral King fruit ranch of six 
hmidred and sixty acres, which lies east of Visalia and disposed of 
it at a gratifying profit. He also owned one of the first apple or 
chards in the county and at the time of his death his property hold- 
ings covered an area of about four thousand acres. Mr. Chatten 
laid out the Chatten ditch, now called the Fleming ditch and a part 
of the Mineral King Fruit company's holdings. 

Mrs. Chatten passed away in 1890, leaving one son and three 
daughters, namely: Thomas A., a prominent stockman and dairy- 
man of Visalia; Frances, of San Francisco; Celesta; and Eliza, wife 
of Louis Whitendale, near Visalia. For a second wife Mr. Chatten 
married, in 1S!)2, Mrs. Leah (Miller) Davis, widow of the late Thomas 
H. Davis, a pioneer of Antelope valley. Mrs. Chatten was born in 
Arkansas and crossed the plains to California in 1856, and since 
1857 has been a resident of Tulare county. Mr. Chatten was a well- 
known Mason, and was always a prominent factor in movements that 
had for their object the benefit of his community, and his memory 
will ever be held sacred by his many friends and associates in Visalia 
and the' surrounding country, where he was best known. 



FRED C. HOWE 

It was in Santa Clara county that this native son of California 
was born in 1858. Henry X. and Rebecca J. Howe, his parents, 
came out here in 1852 from Maine, his father coming around Cape 
Horn, his mother by way of the Isthmus of Panama. For some time 
his father mined in Mariposa county and ran a sawmill near Felton 
in Santa Cruz county. Then the family went to British Columbia 
and lived there several years, while the father mined with little suc- 
cess near Caribou. Returning to California, they located at San 
Jose, Santa Clara county. When Fred C. Howe was sixteen years 
old he went to Solano, whence in 1875 he and his brother Frank 
came to what is now Kings county and located near the site of Han- 
ford. They acquired I'ailroad laud and remained in that vicinity 
until 1905, devoting themselves principally to the raising of grain. 
Then Fred C. Howe settled in Tulare county on eighty acres, eight 
and a half miles southwest from Tulare, which he bought of J. W. 
Stiff. There was on the place an artesian well, a house and some 
fencing, and eighty acres of it was given over to orchard. Mr. Howe 
has built a barn on the property, eliminated the orchard and en- 
closed the entire eighty acres in hog-tight fence. Irrigation is ob- 
tained from an artesian well and from the Tulare irrigating canal. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 491 

With fifteen acres iu alfalfa, Mr. Plowe is doing general farming 
and raising blooded horses, cattle and hogs. Besides the operation 
of his home farm, he rents three hundred and twenty acres adjoining, 
on which he raises grain. For the past thirty j-ears or longer he 
has run a thresher in season in Tulare and Kings counties. He is a 
stockholder in the Dairymen's Co-operative Creamery Company. 

In 1890 Mr. Howe entered into a marriage ])y which he had 
two children, one of whom, Edith, is living at Oakland. In 1909 
he married (second) Miss Elizabeth Stitt. 



HENRY GODFREY TRAEGER 

As proprietor of one of the leading furniture stores of Porter- 
ville, Tulare county, and as a high-class business man and man of 
affairs, the subject of this brief notice is well known in the central 
part of the state. He was born in Kenton, Hardin county, Ohio, 
April 10, 1859, a son of Augaistus and Margareta (Schope) Traeger. 
His parents were born in Germany, his father at Halle-ou-der-Saale 
January 23, 1824, his mother at Reichenburg, Bairon, November 6. 
1831. Their marriage was celebrated April 15, 1852, at Kenton, 
Ohio. The son attended the public schools of Kenton until he was 
twelve years old, then took up the active duties of life as a clerk in 
a dry goods store in that town. 

Mr. Traeger came to Porterville in 1884, arriving November 26, 
and, failing to secure work in a store, began chopping wood by the 
cord. Soon, however, he fell a \ictim to fever and went to the moun- 
tains and found work as a herder of hogs. Forty-eight days later 
he returned to the valley iu good health. He worked ten acres of 
vineyard on shares, making from five thousand to six thousand gal- 
lons of wine each year for three years. He then went to work for 
Wilko Mentz in his store, as he supposed for only a week, luit re- 
mained for fourteen years, and gave it up only because of ill health 
in order to go to the mountains. For a time he took care of a lum- 
lier yard for A. M. Coburn; then he mined iu the White River dis- 
trict. Next we find him in Alaska, increased in weiglit from one 
hundred and thirty-five ]iounds to two hundred and eight jtounds 
and greatly improved in health. There he remained one season, and 
after his return he liecame a grain buyer for Eppenger & Comi)any. 
Later he was in the furniture business for five years, then traded his 
store for a grocery business, sold that and became interested in the 
electrical business, and then traded that for orange land, but soon 
discovered that he was not likely to succeed as a farmer and took 
advantage of a good opportunity to dis]3ose of his holding. 

For three years Mr. Traeger was deputy assessor undci- J. F. 



492 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Gibsou ami assessed the taxpayers of the city of Poi'terville in the 
first and second years of its corporate existence. As a Republican 
he was elected a member of the board of trnstees of Porterville, in 
which capacity he served faithfully and efficiently three years, when 
he resigned. Socially he is a member of the Tule River Fishing 
and Shooting Association. Fraternally he associates with the Ma- 
sons, being a member of Porterville Lodge, F. & A. M., and the 
Royal Arch Chapter. 

At Porterville, September 5, 1891, Mr. Traeger married Mary 
Schmidt, a daughter of Joseph Schmidt, who was the leader of the 
Second Regiment Band at Black Point and the Presidio. They have 
children named Henry A., a trap-drummer, and Wilko J., the latter 
attending high school at Porterville. As a citizen Mr. Traeger has 
always been helpful to every movement for the advancement of 
Porterville and the country round about. 



CARYL CHURCH 

In 1878 Caryl Church moved to Tulare county and became a 
settler in the San Joaquin valley. He was born in Erie county, 
Ohio, June 6, 1846, and was eleven years old when his family innui- 
grated to Iowa and twenty-three when he came to California. His 
early life was spent in school and at work on his father's farm. For 
a time after he came to this state he worked for wages, mostly on 
ranches, and the knowledge of farming that he acquired in that way 
was a fitting complement to that which he had acquired under his 
father's instruction. Now he was a California farmer, fully com- 
petent to go into business for himself. Coming to Kings county, he 
located on what is now his home place, a fine ranch not far from 
Hanford. By successive purchases he has become the owner of four 
hundred acres of as productive land as is to be found in his vicinity. 
He began as a wheat raiser, and as such he was successful until 
stock raising promised him better returns. He raises hogs, horses 
and cattle, and his stock of whatever kind is as good as is oflFered 
in the market, always sells well and sometimes brings top-notch 
prices. 

In 1871 Mr. Church married Miss Annie E. Rowland, who was 
born in the state of New York. They became the parents of six 
children, Charles, Elery, Beecher, Birch. Carrie (the wife of Frank 
Sanborn), and one daughter who died in early childhood. The sons 
are living on adjoining ranches, all prospering by their devotion to 
the interests that have brought their father so much success. A 
recent specialty of Mr. Church is grapes, to which he has given five 



TULARE AND KING8 COUNTIES -i:i3 

acres of suitable land. In the atifairs of his township, county, state 
and nation he takes a sincere and most intelligent interest, and he 
has many times manifested a commendable public spirit. 



THE FENWICK SANITARIUM 

In this era of ad\'anced surgery and scientific treatment of dis- 
ease, the sanitarium proiierly equipped and conducted is an absolute 
necessity in any cit.v. Visalia possesses in the Penwick Sanitarium, 
conducted and owned by Miss D. V. Fenwick, an institution afford- 
ing every facility in emergency and surgical cases and a <|uiet re- 
treat for persons desiring a restful environment in which to regain 
health. Miss Fenwick, who was graduated from the Los Angeles 
county and city hospitals in 1902, and from the ('hildren's hospital 
in San Francisco, is experienced in her chosen line. Patients in 
her care are allowed choice of physicians, and leading ]ihysicians 
and surgeons practice in and recommend the institution. This sani- 
tarium is ideally located on Mineral King avenue, far enough from 
the city to insure quiet and pure atmosphere. Fresh fruit from or- 
chards surrounding the building, vegetables from the sanitarium gar- 
den, butter and milk and cream from Miss P'enwick's own dairy 
and eggs from her ])oultry yard add much to the efficiency of the 
institution. The place has ]-ecently been remodeled and improved, 
and the building is one of the best appointed of its kind in central 
California. A new operating room, completely equipped, has been 
added and every modern aid to surgery is suiiplied; two ti'ained 
nurses are regularly employed and others as they are required, 
and the sanitarium is equal to the accommodation of fourteen patients. 
The various railroads of this section patronize it, which is in itself 
a sjilendid recommendation. 

The history of this institution dates from 1902, when it was 
establislied, in a small way, on South Court street, by its present 
owner and manager, who deserves great credit for the enterprise 
and perseverance which she has enq^loyed in maintaining and build- 
ing it u]). Miss Fenwick is a native daughter of Tulare county. 
ITer i)arents, P. L. and Sarah (Jones) Fenwick, wlio were born in 
Illinois, came overland to California in the earl}' '50s. For a time 
they stopped in Fresno county, then came to Tulare county, wJiere 
her father became a farmei- and cattle-raiser and o])ei-ated exten- 
sively near Orosi and in Antelope valley until Jaimai'y 15, 1911, 
when he died, aged eighty-one years. Following are the names of 
his children: Jasper, who died February 15, 1911; Alonzo L., Edward 
and Miss D. V. Thi' latter left home at the age of si.xteen to be- 



494 TULABE AND KTXOS COUNTIES 

come a gTaduated trained nurse. How successful she lias been is 
known to all who are conversant with the splendid work done by the 
institution of which she is the head. 

Miss Fenwick is constantly improving her institution; within the 
past year she has remodeled the basement, installed electricity for 
heating and cooking, and has added restrooms, thus increasing the 
comfort of her patients, and is always looking out for the sanitation of 
the place and the health of its patrons. 



EAEL BAGBY 

In Clay county, Kans., January 8, 1887, Earl Bagby was born, 
and when he was a year old his family moved to California, locating 
at Visalia, where his parents, E. J. and Elizabeth (Hughes) Bagby, 
are still living. After his graduation from the grammar and high 
schools of that city, he entered the University of Michigan at Ann 
Arbor, from which institution he was duly graduated with the LL. D. 
degree with the class of 1908, and soon afterwards was admitted to 
practice in the courts of Michigan. In November, 1908, he was ad- 
mitted to practice in all the courts in the state of California and 
opened a law office in Visalia. In November, 1910, he was elected to 
the office of justice of the peace, upon the duties of which he entered 
in January, 1911, and in the latter year he was elected judge of the 
recorders' court of Visalia. Before his election to these offices he 
had been for some time attorney for and assistant secretary of the 
California Humane Society. 

Fraternally Mr. Bagby affiliates with the Woodmen of the "World, 
in which he holds the office of Coimcil Commander ; with the F. 0. E., 
in which he is president; with the Loyal Order of Moose, of which 
he is treasurer, and the Independent Order of Foresters. He is 
^^ee iiresideut of the Tennis club, a member of the Kaweah club, 
secretary of the board of trade of Visalia and secretary of the Demo- 
cratic County Central Committee. In 1911 he married Miss Celissa 
B. Wing, a native of Maine, being a daughter of F. H. and Sadie 
Wing. 

Mr. Bagby practices in all the federal courts of the state, ex- 
ce]it the court over which he presides. He was admitted to the 
United States District Court in the month of May, 1909, and to the 
United States Circuit Court in the same month. He has gained the 
respect of the entire community and has built up a large and lucra- 
tive practice in the superior courts. As an office attorney his coun- 
sel is sought by a large clientage. A great part of his work consists 
of conveyancing, in which line he has had a very extensive experi- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 495 

ence. A large part of his legal work deals with the law of real prop- 
erty and contracts. 

In 1912 Mr. Bagliy bel]»ed to organize the Teal Gnn Club. This 
club has built two club houses aud made large duck ponds from the 
waters of an artesian well in section 28, township 24, range 25, upon 
six hundred and forty acres of land held under lease by said club. 
He is one of three directors; it is limited to twenty, and its member- 
ship extends to Kings as well as Tulare county. 



THOMAS E. HOWES 

The Middle West, constantly drawing on the East to fill up its 
quota of citizens, is as constantly sending some of its best blood to 
the Pacific coast, and its men arrive in California imbued with the 
spirit not only of the land immediately beyond the Rockies but of 
the whole broad country to the Atlantic. It is probalile that Illinois 
has sent as many good citizens to California as any otlier state in 
the favored region under consideration. One of them who is located 
near Hanford, Kings county, and is making for himself an enviable 
record is Thomas E. Howes, who was born in Dekalb countj^, in the 
Prairie State, February 11, 1863, the same year in which his father, 
Philip Howes, was killed in the Civil war. A few years later the boy 
came with his mother to California and was a student in the public 
school at Eucalyptus, Tulare (now Kings) county. At an early age 
be began to work on ranches round aliout and in a few years he 
gained a practical knowledge of farming as it was then conducted in 
this part of California. 

In 1882 Mr. Howes began farming on his own account on rented 
hind, and so successful was he that by 1886 he was able to buy eighty 
acres of good land, which is now included in his homestead. As he 
has accumulated money he has invested it in land from time to time 
until he is now the owner of over five hundred acres devoted to gen- 
eral farming and to dairying. He has improved his ranch in many 
\vays, and it now presents a view in which a good home aud aju]i]e 
barns and outbuildings are jileasing features. His methods of culti- 
vation are up to date, and he works only with machines and appli- 
ances of modern construction and efficiency. Since 1873 Mr. Howes 
lias been a resident of the vicinity where he is now living. At that 
time no trees were to be seen between Cross creek and Mussel slough 
on the plains. As a citizen he is known for his liberality of thought 
and for liis generous co-operation in the promotion of measures for 
the ])iihli(' weal. Fraternally he affiliates with the Independent Order 
of Foresters and with the Woodmen of the World. He married 



496 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Cora Yuel November 15, 1885. Mrs. Howes, who is a native daughter 
jf California, was born June 20, 1868, and they have five children, 
Ralph, Everett, Marion, Forest and Ora. 



CHAUNCEY M. BAKER 

It was in Mill Creek valley that Chauncey M. Baker, one of the 
well-to-do farmers in the vicinity of Dunlap, was born July 3, 1877, 
and there he has spent his life to the present time. He attended 
the Mill Creek school and was initiated into the mysteries of fann- 
ing under his father's instruction. 

At San Rafael in 1905, Mr. Baker married Olive Hargrave, a 
native of Mendocino county, whose father, Charles M. Hargrave, 
crossed the plains in the pioneer days and was an early settler on 
Cache creek, Yolo county, whence he moved to Mendocino county. For 
several years prior to her marriage, Mrs. Baker taught school in 
Mendocino and Fresno counties. 

Mr. Baker homesteaded one hundred and sixty acres of land 
and January 10, 1908, received his patent from the government. 
That same year he bought four hundred and eighty acres, known as 
the old Turner place; in 1910 he added two hundred and forty acres 
known as the Wilson place and one hundred and sixty acres of rail- 
road land, and he is now the owner of one thousand and forty acres. 
He cultivates two hundred and fifty acres, and on fifty-five acres he 
raised one Inmdred and eighty tons of hay in 1910, and from some 
of his valley land he cleared $10 an acre in 1909. He has about three 
thousand cords of marketable wood on his place. He has given 
some attention to breeding fine stock and has on hand an average of 
forty to fifty head. He has lived here long enough to have witnessed 
the development of the district from a mountain country to produc- 
tive ranches and remembers when there were but half a dozen 
houses between the hills and Visalia, a section now dotted with mod- 
ern California farms. As a citizen he is generously ]m])lic spirited. 
Politically he is a Republican and fraternally he affiliates with the 
Modern Woodmen of America. 



MRS. IDA MARGARET KAEHLER 

The highly esteemed woman whose name is above lives at No. 
107 Hockett street, Porter\'ille, Tulare county, Cal., and is a repre- 
sentative of an old German family. Ferdinand Rodler, her father, 
a native of the Fatherland, was born May 24, 1823, married in 1857 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 497 

aud came to the United States and devoted himself to the blacksmith 
trade. He was a fine mechanic, and, being also a good business man, 
he prospered. He died at his home in Davenport, Iowa, March 10, 
1904, and his widow, formerly Johanna Louisa Pasclike, is living 
there at the age of eighty-five years, having been born in March. 
1828. Their daughter, Ida Margaret, was born in Davenport June 
20, 1860, and when she became of school age entered the public 
schools of that city, in which she was a pupil imtil she was thirteen 
years old, when she was sent to Berlin, Germany, to finish her educa- 
tion. Eeturning to Iowa when she was sixteen years old, in 1878 
she married N. M. Kaehler, and they had three children. Walter, the 
eldest, died young. Alfred, the second son, is living at Hobart, Ind., 
with his wife and two children. Ferdinand is a machinist at Porter- 
ville. 

In 1884 Mr. and Mrs. Kaehler came to California aud settled on 
White river, in Tulare county, where she lived six years. In 1890 
she moved to Piano and in 1902 from Piano to Porterville, which at 
that time was not a very promising village, having no railway facili- 
ties and few stores, its scanty population trading for the most part 
at Visalia. She now has a valuable and very attractive property, 
having built the hoiise she occupies, and is concentrating her hold- 
ings in Porterville and vicinity, having recently sold her real estate 
at Piano. What she owns she has earned herself, owning unimproved 
property and an interest in the gas plant. Brought up in the Chris- 
tian faith of her fathers, Mrs. Kaehler is devoutly religious, with 
faith in God and in her fellow men. She is firm in the belief that 
all people may become much better if they will learn the right and 
trv to do it. 



MANUEL I. MACHADO 

It was on one of the Azores that Manuel I. Maehado was liorn 
March 19, 1869, and he was reared and educated there and came to 
the United States in 1884. After remaining fifteen months in the 
East, most of the time in Massachusetts, he came to California and 
located at Fresno. Herding sheep in the vicinity for wages for a 
short time, he bouglit sheep and was in the business for himself six 
years. Then he bought one hundred and sixty acres of laud a mile 
and a half from the Cross creek school, where he raised alfalfa three 
years and lost his holdings because of crop failures. He then came 
to near Woodville, in Tulare county, and worked six hundred acres of 
land one year with good success. Using the money he made to pay 
his debts, he then began again at the bottom of the ladder, working 

27 



498 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

for wages, and after two years lie was able to rent forty acres of 
fruit and vinej^ard land eight miles southwest of Tulare. He re- 
placed eighteen acres of the trees with alfalfa and set out sis hun- 
dred trees of new varieties in place of others that had ceased to be 
profitable. Renting forty acres adjoining this land, he set out on it 
six acres of young orchard and devoted the remainder to vines. 
The first of these tracts he operated five years, the latter only one 
year, and then he bought one hundred and sixty acres three miles 
north of Waukena, which he has improved with good buildings, hog- 
tight fences and other api^liances essential to successful operation. 
Eighty-five acres of the land is under alfalfa. He has put down four 
wells, with depths of thirty feet, fifty feet, ninety-six feet and one 
hundred and twenty-five feet, respectively, for stock and domestic 
use. For irrigation he gets water from the Packwood ditch, in the 
companj- controlling which he owns one hundred and twenty shares 
of stock. A feature of his ranch is a fruit orchard for home use. He 
makes a specialty of horses, cattle and hogs and conducts a dairy 
of seventy cows. As a means to success in the latter venture he 
holds a membership in the Dairymen's Association of Tulare. He 
rents three hundred and ninety acres adjoining his home place and 
devotes one hundred and fifty acres of it to alfalfa, the remainder 
to grain and ])astura'ge. On this place he has a partner in stock- 
raising. In 1910 he bought forty- two acres at Paige's Switch, on 
which he built a fine residence, fences and other improvements. 
Twenty-five acres of this property are devoted to alfalfa. Here he 
lives, conducting a dairy of seven cows and raising a few horses, 
cattle and hogs. He has long been one of the foremost in all that 
pertains to agricultural advancement in the county, and besides be- 
longing to the Dairymen's Association he is a stockholder in the 
Co-operative Creamery and in the Rochdale store at Tulare. 

In August, 1893, Mr. Machado married Rosa M. Sauza and has 
seven children. Joseph is a member of their household. Mary is 
the wife of M. T. Barrerio of Tulare. The others, who are com- 
paratively young, are named Vivian, Louisa, Ida, Rosa and Sarah. 
Mr. Machado is a member of the I. D. E. S. organization of Tulare. 
He is helpful to religious and educational enterprises and is actively 
interested in everything pertaining to the welfare of the community. 



ALVIN B. SHIPPEY 

In and around Visalia stand many monuments to the enterprise 
and good taste of Alvin B. Shippey, architect, contractor and builder. 
Mr. Shippey is a native of the capital city of Tulare county and was 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 499 

born March 28, 1874, a son of Daniel P. and Martha A. M. (Hurt) 
Shippey, both of Missouri birth, who came to Visalia in 1872. 

A carpenter by trade, Daniel P. Shippey operated a planing mill 
and worked at his trade in Visalia and has long been well known in 
connection with contracting and building interests in this city. Here 
some of his children were born and all of them grew up and were 
educated. The eldest is Mrs. Eva Sanders. The others are Mrs. 
Lela White, Walter of Porterville, Wilbur of Utah, Albert of Los An- 
geles, and Alvin B. of Visalia. 

After his graduation from the public schools of Visalia, Alvin 
B. Shippey learned the carpenter's trade under his father's instruc- 
tion; in fact, he began to learn it long before he left school, for he 
has driven nails since he was thirteen years old. He began his busi- 
ness career as a partner with his father and brother in the Shippey 
planing mill at Visalia, and in 1902 branched out for himself as a 
contractor and builder, making a specialty of doing architectural 
work and drawing plans for. his buildings. The following products 
of his artistic handicraft should be mentioned here as a part of the 
record of his busy life to date: The James Crowley home, a house 
for John Frans, the Co-operative Creamery building, the homes of 
L. Scott, J. B. Simpson, John Daly, 0. P. Swanson and L. Lucier, 
the North Methodist church, the new cannery building, the Palace 
stables and the residence of J. T. Akers; also twelve fine residences 
in Lindsay, the ranch house and barns of E. O. Miller, the Fred 
Hamilton residence, the Prairie Center school house and the resi- 
dence of Louis Felder. 

In 1902 Mr. Shippey married Miss Ethel Hamilton, a native 
daughter of California, whose father, J. Hamilton, was an early set 
tier in the state, and they have two children, Chester and Mervvn. 



MARTIN V. THOMAS 

In the state of Mississippi, one of the proud old Southern com- 
monwealths, Martin V. Thomas, who lives on the road two miles 
nortJi of the Hanford road, northwest of Tulare, and is one of the 
well-known citizens, of Tulare county, was born May 28, 1846. He 
was taken to Arkansas in childhood, and later went to Texas. He 
was reared to farm lal)or and educated in public schools, and in 1869 
became a member of a j^arty that consumed a year in making the 
overland journey across the plains to California. In April, 1870, he 
arrived at Visalia, where he had friends and relatives, and, liking the 
place, decided to stay there. For ten years he worked in and around 
Visalia for wages, then farmed in the Visalia and Porterville neigh- 
borhoods until 1885, when he homesteaded one hundred and sixty 



500 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

acres at White River, which he improved and farmed seven years. 
Selling that property, he bought four hundred and eighty acres east 
of Porterville, where he raised cattle and other stock two years. He 
disposed of that holding in order to buy sixty-six and one-half acres 
near Woodville, where he conducted a dairy two years. Finding a 
purchaser for the property, he bought one hundred and sixty acres 
at Tipton, where for two j'ears he raised stock and ran a dair^^ Sell- 
ing out there in 1911, he bought forty acres four miles west and two 
miles north of Tulare, on which he is successfully operating a dairy, 
milking ten cows and giving considerable attention to poultry. He 
has twenty-iave acres in alfalfa and four hundred fruit trees. His 
land is irrigated by electric power. 

In 1866, while he was a citizen of Arkansas, Mr. Thomas mar- 
ried Miss Lydia L. Dillard, a native of Alabama. She came across 
the plains with him from Texas and they became the parents of 
eleven children, ten of whom are living: Sam, of Tulare; Mrs. Ella 
Kirby, of Lindsay; Mrs. Ozie Orton, of Lindsay; Mrs. Frank Creech, 
of Tulare ; Mrs. Chidester, of Tulare ; Mrs. John Klindera, of Tipton ; 
Jefferson Thomas, of Tulare; Elmer, of Tulare; Ivan and Roy, mem- 
bers of their parents' household; and Edwin, who is deceased. Mr. 
Thomas is a genial, whole-souled man, wliose friends admire him for 
the active interest which makes him helpful to all local issues. 



JAMES W. WRIGHT 

The birthplace of James W. Wright was Newton county. Mo. 
He was born October 29, 1855, a son of John Wesley and Margaret 
(Lindsey) Wright, natives of Kentucky. The family moved to Texas 
in 1857 and remained there until 1879, Mr. Wright starting the first 
blacksmith shop in Decatur, Wise county. The elder Wright came out 
from Missouri to California in 1852 and stopped in Hangtown. His 
party started in the spring, with ox-teams, and was six mouths in mak- 
ing the journey. Indians stampeded their stock, most of which they 
uever recovered, and were troublesome otherwise. A young man of 
the party fell ill of fever and was left in a tent near pure running 
water, of which he drank copiously, with the result that his fever was 
subdued and he recovered and eventually made his fortune in Califor- 
nia gold mines. Crude law was established in the mining camp and 
swift justice, and sometimes injustice, was inflicted by self-constituted 
hangmen. Mr. Wright spent two years at Hangtown and at George- 
town, then returned to Newton county. Mo. From there he went 
eventually to Chico, Texas, where he engaged in the livery business. 
He had made some money in California, with which he got a good 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 501 

start iu his new home, where he prospered satisfactorily and where 
he spent his last days. 

James W. Wright first located, in 1879, in Pomona, Los Angeles 
county, remaining there until 1891, when he located in Inyo county 
and farmed, raised stock and mined for eighteen years. In 1909 he 
went to Dunlap, Fresno county. He married. May 29, 1883, in Los 
Angeles county, Joan Hickox, who was born on November 8, 1860, in 
Nueces county, Texas. They have nine children: Alfred W., Gilbert 
W., Walter L., Winfield, Florence C, Katie, Warren, Felix and Lois. 
Alfred W. married Mary Remkes, and they have three children, Viola, 
Gladys and Arthur. Gilbert W. married Alice P. Remkes, and they 
have two daughters, lola and Grace. Walter L. and Winfield served 
in the United States navy. The others are at home. 

Ranching and stockraising were long Mr. Wright's principal busi- 
ness. He is now the proprietor of a hotel and feed barns in Dunlap 
and is materially adding to the capacity of his hotel by the construc- 
tion of additional rooms. As a business man he is highly respected 
in his town, where he is prominent in the local Democracy and affiliates 
with the Masonic order. He has in his possession a rocking chair in 
which he was rocked when he was an infant and a gold nugget from 
a Placerville mine, taken out in 1852 by his father-in-law, and other 
valuable relics of pioneer days. Mrs. Wright's father, Alfred Hickox, 
a native of Illinois, went to Texas in young manhood and from there 
came to California in 1852. After mining for a time he returned to 
Texas and engaged in stockraising. He again came overland to Cali- 
fornia in 1869, bringing with him his wife and four children and a 
step-daughter. Mr. Hickox was captain of the train, which suffered 
considerably at the hands of the Indians. He told afterward of a 
young man of the party who killed a squaw and was given up to the 
Indians, who took him away and he was never seen again. Another 
of his reminiscences concerned an event in Arizona. Some emigrants 
dropped a wagon wheel in a spring to tighten its tire ; it dropped out 
of sight, and the prairie schooner to which it belonged was abandoned 
bv the trail side. 



ALEXANDER CLARKE ECCLES 

Educated at Balmoral Agiicultural College, Belfast, Ireland, an 
institution established undci' the jiatvonage of Prince Albert, consort 
of the late Queen Victoria, Alexander Clarke Eccles, of Kings county, 
Cal., who was for a time horticultural commissioner for that county, 
was exceptionally well-fitted for the duties of that office and he is 
widelv known as one of the scientific farmers of Central California. 



502 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

It was at Belfast, Ireland, that Mr. Eccles was born March 21, 
1854. He remained there until he was thirty years old, for a time 
devoting himself to practical farming. He came to the United States 
in 1884 and after tarrying briefly in Kansas and Oregon, came to 
Redding, Shasta county, Cal., where he became a naturalized Ameri- 
can citizen. From Redding he went to Chico, Cal., aud for three 
years was foreman on the fruit farm of General John Bidwell. Then 
he came to Kings county and set out thirty acres of vineyard, north- 
east of Hanford, one-third of which he received for his work. After 
that he was made superintendent of the Del Norte Vineyard & Fruit 
Company and was in charge of its one hundred and sixty acres of 
fruits and vines for twelve consecutive years. After the termination 
of that service he bought forty acres of land two miles aud a quarter 
east of Lemoore and ])ut liis brain and hands to the work of its 
improvement. He now has thirteen acres in vineyard and ten acres 
in orchard. On this place he built a fine house and estaljlished his 
home. Later he bought eighty-five acres at Hardwick, which is under 
alfalfa and devoted to dairy purposes. 

In 1909 Mr. Eccles was appointed horticultural commissioner of 
Kings county, an office which he filled with much ability and for the 
duties of which he had a distant liking, but which he was compelled 
in 1911 to resign because of impaired eyesight. Personally he is 
popular throughout the county, being a stockholder in the Kings 
County Fruit and Raisin Company, a member of the Knights of 
Pythias, Woodmen of the World and Foresters of America. He is 
a member of the Armona Baptist church. His career here has been 
one of success, as will be readily understood when the comparatively 
late date of his coming is considered in connection with the fact that 
when he arrived he had but one dollar and is now worth $40,000. 
In 1901 he married Miss Maggie May Chamberlain, who was born 
in the state of Washington but was then a resident of Kings county. 
They have three children — Alexander Clarke, Ruth May and William 
Sloan. 



JOHN BROTHERS 

As favorably known through his connection with the Italian Svriss 
Company as through his identification with the Lemoore Chamber 
of Commerce and various fraternal organizations, John Brothers 
has won repute iu Kings county, Cal.. as a man of ability and 
efficiency, who may be depended u]ion to assist to the extent of his 
aliility any movement which in his opinion promises to benefit any 
considerable number of his fellow citizens. He was born in Illinois, 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES .jO;3 

April 16, 1879, and was brought to California l)y his parents in 
1883, when he was abont foni- years old. He is a son of (ieorij,e A. 
Brothers, a veteran school teacher, who won success also as a farmer. 
His mother, Mary E. Brothers, also a teacher, became known as a 
woman of mnch ability. The ehh'r ]\fr. Brothers first caine to tliis 
state in 1876 and innnediately engaged in teaching. He went back to 
Illinois and in 1877 retnrued, bringing liis family, and I'cinaincd until 
1880, though his wife returned before that time to their old home 
in the East. In 1883 they came to Lemoore and were lioth employed 
as teachers in the public schools of that city. Mr. Brothei's had 
previously taught in (irangeville and in the Eoades School district. 
He died January 19, 1911. The last eighteen yeai's of his life he 
was engaged in the Government service and a large part of tliis time 
worked in the revenue service from the San Francisco Dei)artment of 
Internal Reveni;e. 

It was in Lemoore that Mr. Brothers grew up and began his 
education in the public schools. Ijater he continued his studies at 
Fresno, where he was duly graduated from the high school. During 
his youth he worked in grocery stores in Fresno and Lemoore and 
gave considerable time to the aquisition of a practical knowledge 
of blacksmithing and of the butcher business. From time to time 
he worked on farms in the vicinity of Fresno and later was associated 
with his father in some agricultural enterprises. He obtained a com- 
plete knowledge of ranching, fruit-growing and stock-raising and by 
1902 was well fitted to enter the employ of the Italian Swiss Colony 
as sujierintendent and local nuinager. In this connection he has had 
charge of the colony's fifteen hundred acres of land, six hundred and 
fifty acres of which is in vineyard, the remainder being devoted to 
the cultivation of barley and alfalfa. Mr. Brothers personally Owns 
forty acres, two miles and a half northwest of Lemoore, which he 
has put under alfalfa and is farming with good results. 

His solicitude for the advancement of Lemoore impelled Mr. 
Brothers to consent to become a member of the board of trustees 
of that town, in which office he lias served eight years, four years of 
the time as president of the Ixiard. lie is one of the leading sjtirits 
in the local (liamber of Commerce and is secretary of that body. In 
the fire department of Lemoore he has always taken a helpful interest, 
and he is tlie very efficient secretary of that organization also. Socially 
he affiliates with the Independent Order of Red Men and with the 
Woodmen of the World and he is secretary of the local division of 
the first mentioned society. In 1903 he married Miss Iffie T. Foley, 
daughter of Dr. R. E. Foley, and they have two children. Geoi-ge E. 
and Carolvn E. Brothers. 



504 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

JAMES H. MAY 

Natives of the South have always been warmly welcomed to 
Califoruia and none more so than sons of Alabama. James H. May 
was born in the state just mentioned and went early in life to Mont- 
gomery county, Ark., where he was in office fourteen years either 
as tax collector or sheriff. When the Civil war began he issued a 
call for volunteers and quickly recruited a company of three hundred 
and thirteen men, only nine of whom returned to Arkansas alive. 
He rose to be a major and later served as lieutenant-colonel of his 
regiment. Three of his sons were lost in the war, one being instantly 
killed in a charge within ten feet of the Union breastworks. In 1865 
he became a cattleman in Texas, accumulated two thousand head of 
cattle, and prospered well until his business was ruined by dry 
seasons. He came to Califoruia in 1869 as captain of a train of ox- 
teams and later found in Tulare county some cattle that he had 
owned in Texas and marked with his l)raud "MAY," which had been 
driven overland by another man. 

Mr. May left Texas with one hundred and ten families in his 
train. In Arizona all but seven of these families were killed by 
Indians or died from sickness. His account of these events was 
very interesting. Until 1874 he teamed at and near Porterville. Then 
he raised sheep and cattle until he was driven out of business by the 
dry season of 1877, when his stock died. He was for a number of 
years road master of his district and in 1879-80 built the road across 
the Blue Ridge in the mountains. He served also as constable in the 
Tule River district. 

Miss Caroline Hockett, a sister of the famous John Hockett, 
who came to California before the discovery of gold, became the 
wife of Mr. May, and their children who survive are: James J.; 
Mrs. R. T. Hogancamp, of Bakersfield, Cal. ; and Mrs. Victoria M. 
Clarke. There were other children who are now dead. The father 
passed away in 1888, the mother seven years earlier. 

The only surviving son of James H. and Caroline (Hockett) May 
is James J. May, who lives a half a mile south of East Mineral 
King avenue, near Visalia. He was born in Montgomery county. Ark., 
and assisted his father in the latter 's farming operations until the 
elder May died in 1888. Then for a time he teamed in Kern county 
and afterward farmed ten years near Tipton and from there moved 
to Exeter, where for six years he operated the farming land on the 
Las Palomas ranch. He came to his present homestead in 1899. Here 
he owns forty acres which he has developed from wild, rough land 
to a productive ranch with an adequate irrigation system. He gives 
his attention principally to fruit and has planted six acres to prunes, 
twenty to Bartlett i)ears and two to peaches. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 505 

Fraternally Mr. May afifiliates with the Masonic lodge at Visalia, 
Tulare City lodge No. 30(), I. O. O. P., and the local organization of 
the Woodmen of the World. As a citizen he is popular and he has 
in a public-spirited way done much for the benefit of the community. 
In 1885 he married Miss May E. Boas, a native of California, whose 
father settled at Lemon Cove in the early '50s. She has borne him 
four children: Loyal A.; Frank H. ; Lena, who is the wife of Arthur 
T. Dowse of Oakland, and Ruby. 



ALEXANDER WELLINGTON BASS 

In Dallas county. Mo., Alexander Wellington Bass was born, 
October 30, 1861. It was in that county that he was reared and gained 
much of his education in the jiublic school. When he was eighteen 
years old he accompanied his father to Boise City, Idaho, where he 
attended school two years longer. He early gained a knowledge of 
farming and at Boise City learned the carpenters' trade. Eventually 
he returned to Missouri and started back to Idaho by way of the coast 
in order to see California. He stopped off at Hanford March 9, 1888, 
and liking the town and the country round al^out obtained employ- 
ment on a farm, where he worked several months. Then, locating in 
Hanford. he took up carpentering and after three years became a 
contractor and builder. Three years later he added house-moving 
to his business and that part of his work became so important that it 
gradually commanded all his time and attention. As a contractor 
he had for a partner J. D. Ellis, and they confined their opera- 
tions mostly to building residences, of which they built as many 
in their period of activity as any concern in this part of the state. 
As a house-mover his operations have extended throughout the San 
Joaquin valley from Bakersfield to Stockton and he was once awarded 
a four-month contract as far away as Santa Rosa. 

As a Democrat Mr. Bass has been active in local and state politics 
for ten years. In 1909 he was elected to serve four years as a member 
of the board of trustees of Hanford. Fraternally he affiliates with 
Tent No. 40, K. 0. T. M., the Foresters of America, and the Woodmen 
of the World. He was long a member of the old Chamber of Com- 
merce and has for twenty-one years been identified with the volunteer 
fire department of Hanford. For twelve years he has served without 
pay as a trustee of the Hanford Cemetery Association. When he 
was elected there was no fund even to pay the sexton, but because 
of his good management the association now has a surplus of $11,000 
to $12,000 at interest, a fund for the up-keep of the cemetery. 

September 6, 1888, Mr. Bass married Alice Howard, daughter of 



506 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

John A. and Maiy Howard and a native of Clarke county, Mo. They 
have had six children: Earnest, born May 20, 1891; Ethel, July 9. 
1897; Edna, August 16, 1900; Anita, April 12, 1902; Clarence, who 
died in 1906, aged seventeen years; Avis, who died at the age of ten 
months. Earnest is at home, and Ethel, Edna and Anita are attending 
school. 



DANIEL M. HERRIN 

Incidental to our economic development of the last half century 
has been the evolution of the modern creamery, a corporate agency 
which has come to do the work of a large number of individuals, 
and to do it better and to give results of a more uniform quality than 
was possible under the old order of things. Creameries are located 
here and there throughout the county, none of them are very large or 
conspicuous, and none of them attracts attention by such loud and 
discordant noises as emanate from industrial plants of various other 
kinds. But the products of creameries are used ever^Tvhere by every- 
body, in such an inmiense volume that the statistics of the industry are 
almost staggering. However, it was not to comment at length on this 
subject that this article was begun, and what little has been said con- 
cerning it has been set down by way of showing how important a 
work has engaged the talents of Daniel M. Herrin for some time past. 

Mr. Ilerrin was born in Marion county, Ind., July 2, 1862, and 
attended the public schools until he was nineteen years old. In 
1891 he engaged in stock-raising and farming and gradually concerned 
himself in the creamery business. His interests in that way, small 
at lirst, increased until he was called to the management of the Tulare 
Creamery Company of Corcoran. He continued as the manager of 
the Corcoran i^lant of the Tulare Co-operative Creamery Company 
until March, 1912, when he resigned his position. He then organized 
the Lake View Creamery Company June 1, 1912, and began running 
regularly November 1 of that year. 

This is a stock company incorporated under the laws of the 
State of California with a capital stock of $50,000.00 of which Mr. 
Niss Hanson is president, F. A. Cleveland of Corcoran, secretary 
and treasurer, and Daniel M. Herrin is manager. They have installed 
a car lot service and are now shipping and selling direct to the 
wholesale trade of Los Angeles their choice milk and cream products. 
A three-ton ;!utomobile truck transports their products from the plant, 
which is substantially constructed and built of concrete and equipped 
with the best of machinery and located six miles southwest of Cor- 
coran, to the Santa Fe railway station. Thus expeditiously handled 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 507 

the said products net their patrons about four cents per pound of 
butter fat more than can be realized if sold to the creameries. 

Mr. Herrin has been a citizen of Kings county since December, 
1910, and since that time has never failed to respond liberally to any 
demand upon his public spirit. He is a Mason and socially he is a 
favorite with all who know him. His business methods are such as 
to appeal strongly to the farming community, and the institution of 
which he is the head is one of the most jDopular in this part of the 
state and is patronized more and more liberally with each passing 
year. 



ENOCH WORK 

It was on Cache Creek, Yolo county, that Enoch Work was born 
November 8, 1851, a son of Hopkins and Martha (Parker) Work, 
natives respectively of Tennessee and Kentucky. They came across 
the plains with ox-teams from the latter state in 1849, stopping at 
Hangtown and later at Georgetown and eventually moved to Yolo 
county, whence they came in 1859 to Tulare county and settled near 
Kaweah. The elder Work engaged in farming and stock-raising in 
that neighliorhood and ]5rospered there until 187.3, when he home- 
steaded land on Mill Creek, Fresno county, but soon relincjuished 
the title which was taken and perfected by his son Enoch. He bought 
an additional one hundred and sixty acres, increasing his holding to 
three hundred and twenty acres. This property they improved and 
it has l)een the family home to this time. When they came, only 
the Baker and Turnei- families lived in the neighborhood and there 
was no settlement at Dunlap. Cattle and horses roamed everywhere 
at will, there was an abundance of wild game and bear were so 
plentiful that Mr. Work lassoed one in the road and led him home, a 
feat which his cousin soon duplicated. ■ These animals were made 
food for hogs. The early settlers killed many deer. 

One hundred acres of Mr. Work's land is devoted to farming, 
nine acres to orchard, peaches, pears and apples being the priuci]:)al 
fruit, the remainder being under timber and pasture grass. He 
keeps thirty head of horses and cattle and one hundred and fifty hogs. 

In politics Mr. Work is non-partisan. As a citizen he is public- 
spirited and helpful and he was for some time school trustee in the 
Mill Creek district. He mari'ied, in Drum valley. Miss Alma Fen- 
wick, a native of Illinois. They have ten children: Angeline, Polly, 
Sarah Nettie, Thomas, Nicholas, Leora, Alma, Daisy, Orville and 
June. Angeline married Frank Hutchinson and bore him a son and 
a daughter; J. W. Howell is her present husband. Polly married 



508 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

W. L. McElroy and has two ehildren. Sarah Nettie is the wife of 
C. H. McElroy and has one son. Thomas married Alma B. Howell 
and they have one child. Leora is the wife of Frank McHaley. 
Two of the younger ehildren of Mr. Work are attending school. 



STEPHEN E. HENLEY 

Born in Scott county, Iowa, in 1858, Stephen E. Henley of Porter- 
ville, Tulare county, Cal., attended the public schools near his home 
during the years of his boyhood and wlien quite young engaged in 
the stock business, raising and selling cattle. He continued in that 
line in his native state until 1901, when he came to California. 
Locating at Porterville, he bought three tracts of land, one of twenty 
acres set to oranges, one of eighty and one of forty acres. In 1907 he 
sold this ]iroperty, retaining only mining rights on eighty acres. 
His mining claim consists of a twelve-foot ledge of high grade china 
clay, an outcropping of spar, suitable for the making of porcelain 
and dishes. When he came to the county and had looked around a 
little he concluded that there was more ore here than more experienced 
miners would have believed, but he prospected for six years before 
he found what he was looking for, then opened the ledge known 
as the "Lost Squaw." He has been oifered $12,000 for the claim, 
but says that with $20,000 exposed to sight he could not sell at such 
a iigure. While Mr. Henley had the direction of the matter, his son, 
0. F. Henley, and Budd Creeks actually discovered the ledge. He 
originated the Tulare County Power Company and was the first 
man of this company to file on the water rights of the Tule river, 
by which power has been developed and is being transmitted three 
hundred miles and used for pumping plants and other purposes. He 
sold out his interest in the company in 1911. 

Mr. Henley's wife was Laura M. Hartley, a native of Johnson 
county, Iowa, and their marriage was solemnized in that state in 
1880. They have five children, all of wliom live in California. O. 
Floyd married Edith Bursell and has two children, Alta and Alberta ; 
his home is in Tulai-e county. Ada married Charles Roberts, and has 
two children, Ray and Alice May. May is Mrs. Bert Hoover, of Tulare 
county, and has one daughter, Aysha. Minnie is the wife of Ash 
Crabtree and has three children, Ramona, Clair and Emory. Maud 
is Mrs. Floy Wyer of Modesto, who has one son, Cecil. Mrs. Henley's 
parents were natives of Iowa. 

The story of the event that was instrumental in bringing Mr. 
Henley to California is not the least interesting feature of his bio- 
graphy. In 1889, while he was living in Northwest Iowa, he was 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 509 



o 



caught bj' a terrific storm that carried damage to a wide and long 
stretch of country and fell under a nearly fatal lightning stroke. After 
that he was long in the hospital, and when, at length, he was dis- 
charged he had lost the use of his limbs, partly from paralysis caused 
by his accident, and partly from disuse, and was so impaired in health 
and vitality that his physicians advised him to seek the recuperative 
influence of a milder climate. 



CHARLES R. BLAMQUIST 

This well-known contractor, builder and farmer of Tulare, Cal., 
was born in Sweden, January 8, ISGG, and was there educated and 
fully instructed in the trade of the wagon maker. In 1884, when 
he was about twenty-two years old, he came to the United States 
and locating in St. Paul, Minn., found emplo>Tiient at his trade. In 
the fall of 1890 he went to Montana and there began his career as a 
contractor and builder. From 1891 to 1893 he devoted his energies 
to that business in Seattle, Wash., then came to Los Angeles, Cal., 
and acquired a half interest in the Los Angeles Fertilizer Company, 
which he retained until 1897. Then, disposing of his interests in 
Los Angeles, he went up to Lincoln and Yakima counties, Wash., 
where during the ensuing fourteen years he devoted himself to 
grain and stock-raising on eight hundred acres of land, occasionally 
doing a little Iniilding in order that his hand might not lose its 
cunning. We find him next at Klamath Falls, Ore., where he lived 
nine months and thence came to Tulare in July, 1909. Here he has 
devoted his attention principally to building, though in December, 
1911. he bought forty acres of land two miles southeast of Tulare 
which he planted to alfalfa and is developing for dairy purjioses. 

At Tulare Mr. Blamquist has built twelve houses and he has 
built two others in the country nearby. Among these are the resi- 
dences of N. E. Stanley, Mrs. X. Anderson, E. S. Higdoii, Mrs. 
West and Mr. Martin, and also two for Charles Henley; the house 
which he erected for Alfred Crawford also deserves mention. Bv 
doing work in every way satisfactory he is gaining the confidence 
of the public, and his continued success is by no means in doubt. 
He affiliates with the Order of Fraternal Aid and in other ways 
manifests an interest in the social and business affairs of his 
community. At Pasadena in 1897 he married Miss Margaret V. 
Smith and they have the following children: Georgia, Miller and 
Newland. The success which Mr. Blamquist has achieved is purely 
that of the self-made man who is alert for opportunities and quick 
to grasp them, honest and straightforward in his dealings with his 



510 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

fellow citizens, and he commands respect by showing respect for 
the rights and opinions of others. He has in many ways shown an 
admirable public spirit. 



GUSTAVUS A. RICHARDSON 

In San Jose. Santa Clara coimty, Cal., Gustavus A. Richardson 
was born January 12, 1856, a son of Roswell and Louisa (Rodgers) 
Richardson. His father was a native of PhTnouth, N. H., born June 
24, 1797, a grandson of Samuel Richardson, who with his brothers, 
Ezekiel and Thomas, founded the town of Woburn, Mass., in 1641. 
Louisa Rodgers became his wife in 1849, in Clark county, Mo. In 
1855 they came to California across the plains. After living in Santa 
Clara county three years, they moved to Tulare county, where Mr. 
Richardson died, July 4, 1877. His widow married George W. Hayden 
and died June 4, 1881, and was buried in the North Tule cemetery. 
There were born to Mr. and Mrs. Richardson four children: Martha 
Matilda, born September 15, 1850, died in 1863; Georgiana, born 
August 8, 1862, died July 5, 1888; Benjamin Franklin, born October 
30, 1854, died November 2, 1880; and Gustavus A. is the immediate 
subject of this article. 

A common school education was all that was afforded Gustavus 
A. Richardson in the days of his youth and he was only a small lad 
when he began to assist his father in the work of the ranch. When 
he was sixteen years old he took a bunch of horses to Salt Lake City 
and sold them and came back to Tulare county, being the only one to 
make the entire trip of the eight who started. In 1875 he went to 
Arizona and remained there until 1881, when he returned to Tulare 
county, where he controlled ranches until 1884. Then he homesteaded 
one hundred and sixty acres of land on the North Tule river, where 
he farmed about twenty years, during which period he added to his 
acreage by various purchases. At this time his ranch is one of the 
best and most productive in its vicinity. The family home has been 
in Porterville since 1911. 

October 1. 1888, Mr. Richardson was appointed postmaster at 
Milo, Cal., and held the office until January 1, 1908, when he was 
succeeded by F. M. Ainsworth, in whose interest he had resigned, 
October 1, 1907. Politically he is Republican. Fraternally he affiliates 
with the Knights of Pythias, and is a charter member of Porterville 
lodge, No. 93, of that order. He married at Visalia, June 2, 1884, 
Mary Agnes (Braden) Ainsworth, daughter of John Braden, and 
widow of Andrew E. Ainsworth. Mrs. Ainsworth, who was a native 
of Kansas, had a son (A. E. Ainsworth) by her tirst marriage. He 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 511 

was born January 16, 1877, was graduated at tlie Stockton Business 
College and wlien he was only eighteen years old was awarded a 
teachers' diploma. He taught successfully in public schools until 
his death, which occurred December 9, 1899. Four children were born 
to Mr. and Mrs. Eicliardson, all natives of Tulare county: Eoswell 
Guy, born at Milo February 22, 1886, was educated in the public 
schools and at the Oakland Polytechnic. Gustavus Alvah, born at 
Milo, February 5, 1888, was graduated from public schools at fourteen, 
and from the Porterville high school at nineteen and was a student 
at the Potts Business College in 1909-10, and has since been employed 
by the Pasadena Ice Company. Eunice Marguerite, born at Milo, 
June 21, 1890, was graduated from public schools at thirteen and from 
the Porterville high school in her eighteenth year. She married 
Wilko Cutler Knupp at Porterville, September 22, 1908. Her child, 
Benora Knupp, was born May 31, 1909 ; Mrs. Knupp later entered 
the State Normal school at Los Angeles and was graduated there- 
from June 23, 1911, and is now teaching in Tulare county. Eoscoe 
Vinton Richardson, born at Milo, April 11, 1896, had two terms in 
the high school at Pasadena and is now attending the Porterville 
high school. AVhile the children were attending schools in Southern 
California, Mr. Richardson purchased and maintained a home in 
Pasadena, which he still owns. 



JAMES B. MAYER 

From a land of long, frigid winters to a land of winters short 
and sununery came the subject of this notice about the first of 
October, 1907. How well he has prospered here and how much he 
has done for the i)rosperity of his community is well known to 
business circles throughout Kings county, Cal. James B. Mayer, 
president of the First National Bank of Corcoran, was born in 
Su])erior, Wis., March 21, 1863. When he was about ten years old 
his father moved onto a timbered farm in northern Minnesota and 
he soon became well-known there, riot only as a farmer, but as 
lumberman, merchant and banker. Here young Mayer grew up to 
young manhood. He had begun his studies at the public schools of 
Superior, continued them in Minnesota and took a special course 
at the Curtis Business College of Minneapolis. 

At the age of twenty-four he became the deputy eountj' recorder 
of Carlton county, Minn., in which position his pleasing personality 
made him a favorite of the general public. His next venture was 
in the general merchandise business and it was while thus engaged 
he married Miss Nettie E. Hayes of Thomson, Minn., November 



512 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

4, 1879. The felicitj' of this union was broken, liowever, by the 
death of his wife, which occurred at Floodwood, Minn., February 
24, 1905, leaving him a son and daughter, Mildred, aged nineteen, 
and Jay, aged seventeen years. 

Other interests than banking engage Mr. Mayer's attention. He 
is secretary of the Corcoran Gas & Water Company, which he 
helped to organize in 1908, when it took over the Security Land & 
Loan Company, and has since provided an ample supply of good 
water for the needs of the growing town of Corcoran. He is also 
associated as stockholder in the Corcoran Land Company, also in 
the Los Angeles Suburban Homes Company. Fraternally he affiliates 
with the Masons and Odd Fellows. Socially he is in favor with all 
who know him and politically he is active in the promotion of all 
that he deems best for the general good. 



THOMAS McCAETHY 

Ireland has given to the United States an element of fellowship 
that, by itself and by admixture with others, has been potent for 
progress since immigration began to come to these shores. Thomas 
McCarthy, born in County Kerry, on the Emerald Isle. April 22. 
1855. sailed over to New York in 1872 and made his way with all 
possible speed to California, which was his real objective point. He 
stopped in Stanislaus county until 1874, then came to Kings county, 
where he has since lived and jDrospered. He became a laud owner 
here in 1875, when he bought eighty acres. In 1877 he bought another 
eighty-acre tract on which he has since established his home, and in 
1887 bought forty acres southeast of Armona. He acquired two 
hundred and forty acres more in 1902, and is now owner of four 
hundred and forty acres of as good land as is to be found in the 
country round Hanford. He gives his attention to general farming 
and to hog-raising. His products always bring good prices and he 
has raised some of the best hogs that have been grown in his part 
of the county in recent years. His ranch is well equipped with 
everything essential to its successful operation and is provided with 
a good residence and plenty of up-to-date outbuildings of all kinds. 

As a citizen Mr. McCarthy is practical and progressive, having 
a firm faith in the fundamental principles underl^dng the government 
of his adopted country and having at heart always a deep solicitude 
for the happiness and prosperity of his fellow citizens of all classes. 
He was one of the builders of the Lakeside ditch and is serving as 
a director. 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 513 

JOHN E. HALL 

One of the Tennesseans who have found fortune in the golden 
fields of California is John E. Hall, prominent citizen and farmer, who 
lives a mile west of Hanford in Kings county. Mr. Hall was born in 
Tennessee June 13, 18G8, and was reared there and educated in the 
common schools and worked at farming there until he was twenty- 
one years old, when he went to Wichita county, Texas. There he 
remained imtil lie came, in August, 1893, to Hanford, where he rented 
three hundred and twenty acres of land just northwest of the city limits 
and raised grain, grapes and fruit for five years. Then he bought the 
nucleus of his ijresent ranch, consisting of forty acres. A year after- 
ward he bought auotiier forty acres and later he bought eighty 
acres, then another forty acres a mile northwest of Hanford. Of 
the land in these several ])nrchases he has set forty acres in vines 
and sixty acres in orchard. The remainder of his land is in alfalfa 
and pasture. In 1911 he erected a large residence suited to his needs. 

Politically Mr. Hall is a Democrat who takes a really helpful 
interest in the affairs of his town and county. In 1905 and again 
in 1909 he was elected to represent the fourth district as a member 
of the Kings count}' l^oard of supervisors. During the time he has 
served on the board the county purchased the fifty-six acres for 
the site of the present county hospital and the building was erected 
thereon; also the courthouse park was enlarged at a cost of .$23,000. 
Besides he has built roads in his district and been identified with all 
the progressive movements for the upbuilding of the county. Fra- 
ternally he affiliates with the Masons, holding membership in lodge, 
chapter and commandery at Hanford. 

In December, 1891, Mr. Hall married Miss Addie Templeton, 
a native of Tennessee. Their seven children are: Ethel. Edna, Leslie, 
Vesta, Lois, Florence and George. 



RICHARD H. ARNETT 

As a farmer, as a friend to education and as a genial companion, 
Richard H. Arnett was known to many people in the vicinity of 
Visalia, Tulare countj-, Cal. He was born in West Virginia in 
September, 1850, and died at his home near Visalia, October 27, 
1902. He left West Virginia for Missouri when he was eighteen years 
old, and later came to California. 

Arriving in Tulare county in 1875, Mr. Arnett began ranching 
north of Visalia before many mouths passed, and two years later 
he moved to the citj'. In 1882 he became owner of a ranch on East 



ril4 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Mineral King avenue which he began to improve in many ways and 
cultivated with success, though he had not been able down to the 
time of his death to clear it of all incumbrance. 

In 1877 Mr. Arnett luarried Miss Mary E. Shippey, a native of 
Missouri, whose father was an early settler in this part of Cali- 
fornia, and they had ten children: Dora, May, Frank, Richard H., 
Thomas. Fred, Blanche, Earl, an infant not named, and Walter. 
Dora is the wife of Clarence Cxoble. May married Andrew Groble. 
Frank married Etta Beede. Richard H. married Stella Swanson. 
Fred has passed away. Blanche is Mrs. J. R. Thompson. After 
her husband's death, the burden of managing the ranch fell on Mrs. 
Arnett 's shoulders. She had never had much to do with business, but 
had learned a good deal about it by observation. Rising to her respon- 
sibilities, she accepted the situation, and how well she has discharged 
all the obligations of her position is known to the community with 
which she and her husband cast their lot. Not only has she made 
a success of her farming and stock-raising, but she has cleared her 
property of all debt and now owns sixty acres of land in three sections 
of twenty acres each, all close to Visalia and valuable from every 
point of view. She raises cattle, hogs, chickens and turkeys which 
find a ready sale at good prices. All who know her rejoice in her 
prosperity, declaring that she is one of the best business women in 
Central California. 



WILLIAM E. FURMAN 

In Portage county, Ohio, September 4, 1841, William E. Furman 
was born, a son of Eli and Diantha (Hall) Furman, and when he was 
about four years old was taken by his parents to Marion county, 
Iowa. He attended school until he was about fifteen years old, and 
for thirty years afterward was employed by his father on the latter 's 
farm, sometimes in one state and sometimes in another, for the 
elder Furman tilled the soil in different places. The family came 
from Iowa to California in 1859, when William was about eighteen 
years old, and settled in Santa Clara county, where they lived 
thirteen or fourteen years. In 1873 they moved to Merced county, 
where the mother passed away at the age of sixty-one. It was not until 
his marriage, which was celebrated in 1882, that Mr. Furman took up 
the battle of life independently. Coming to Kings county in 1883 he 
settled on an eighty-acre ranch on which his home is now located. In 
1887 he bought a second eighty-acre tract, forty acres of which he sub- 
sequently sold, and eight years later he bought one hundred and sixty 
acres. He gives his attention principally to stock-raising. His ranch 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 515 

has been improved bj' himself with the exception of the house, which 
was built at the time of purchase. Those who know what Mr. Furman 
has accomplished know full well that he is a scientific farmer of varied 
attainments. 

September 25, 1882, Mr. Furman married Miss Mary Stothers, 
who was born in Pennsylvania, April 2, 1856, and came to this state 
in 1881. Of their seven children, Eli W. and Joseph M. are deceased. 
Those living are: Jesse I., Fred A., Florence A., wife of Duncan 
Hanker, Ella I., and Elmer L. As a citizen Mr. Furman is patriotic 
and public-spirited, interested in everything that pertains to the 
advancement of the general welfare. His father came to Kings 
county and made his home with his son, dying at the age of eighty 
years. 



OSCAR SAMUEL DEARDORFF 

That well-known young farmer, Oscar Samuel Deardortf, whose 
success near Hanford, Kings county, Cal., is being commented on in 
farming circles in all the country round about, is not only a native of 
California, but the son of a native of California, a fact which gives him 
a double claim to notice in a work of this character. He was born 
February 29, 1880, not far from his present home, a son of John H. 
Deardortf, who was born in Amador coimty, Cal., in 1852, came to 
Kings county in 1873 and devoted himself to agricultural pursuits, 
winning much success, until he retired from active business. 

In the Cross Creek school, Oscar S. Deardorff was a student 
until he was seventeen years old. Thereafter he assisted his father 
until he attained his majority, and then he went into business for 
himself as a farmer and hog raiser. His success has been more than 
noteworthy and he is now the owner of a ranch of one hundred 
and twenty acres, highly iiuj^roved, which is equipped with good 
buildings of all kinds essential to its operation and with machinery 
and appliances of the most modern construction. Mr. Deardortf's 
knowledge of farming is both accurate and diversified and he is 
probably as good a judge of all that affects the production of good 
crops as any rancher in his neighborhood. 

September 9, 1903, Mr. Deardorff married Irene M. Dodge, a 
native of Kings county, born August 11, 1881. Socially he affiliates 
with the Fraternal Brotherhood and with the Independent Order of 
Odd Fellows. Beyond doing his full duty as a citizen, at the polls 
and elsewhere, he is not particularly active in politics, but his under- 
standing of public questions is definite and his knowedge of all affairs 



516 TULARE AND KINGS (.^OUNTIES 

of state is exact and comprehensive. He has in many ways demon- 
strated that he possesses public spirit adequate to all reasonable 
demands upon it. 



A. LEROY DIBBLE 

Many a native of Iowa has brought success to or found it in 
California, to which lowans have immigrated in large numbers for 
many years. It is a notable fact that not a few of the men at the 
head* of affairs in this state were born there or born of parents who 
came from there. A. L. Dibble, whose successes will be mentioned 
in this notice was born in Allamakee county, Iowa, January 9, 1861. 
He received a good public school education, and during the year 
before he attained his majority was employed by his father. The 
family had come to California about 1864 and to Tulare county in 
1873, and the young man was thoroughly at home on the soil and 
practically acquainted with the most approved methods of husbandry 
which farmers were applying to their problems here on the coast. 

In 1882 Mr. Dibble began farming for himself on rented land, 
and in due time he bought an eighty-acre ranch and engaged in 
stock-raising and dairying. This place, which he has greatly improved, 
has been his home continuously from that time till the present, and as 
a home ranch it is one of the cosiest and best equipped in his vicinity. 
On May 7, 1882, he married Miss Mary A. Lewellyn, who was born 
in Nevada county, Cal., August 16, 1864. Their five children are: 
Grace Arvilla, widow of M. J. Devine; Effie E., Lawrence Leroy, 
Leonard A., and William Oscar. 

Mr. Dibble is identified with the Fraternal Brotherhood. Politic- 
ally he is not active beyond the requirements of his duties as a 
citizen, but his positive convictions concerning all questions of public 
policy make him a party man who yields staunch allegiance to the 
principles he feels called upon to espouse. He has never sought office 
and has steadfastly declined such official preferment as has been 
tendered him ; but he yielded to the solicitations of his friends that 
he become a school trustee in the Eraser district, and that office he 
filled with singular fidelity and efficiency. 



JAMES A. CRABTREE 

Born in Jefferson county. 111., November 13, 1829, James A. Crab- 
tree, now of Porterville, Tulare county, Cal., was taken to Arkansas by 
his ]iarents, John B. and Rebecca (Wilkerson) Crabtree, when about a 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 517 

year old. The father was with Gen. Jackson at the Battle of Orleans 
and was one of the general 's body guards. He lived there three years, 
in Missouri three years and after that in Texas until in 1852. There 
James A. was educated in the coinnion seliools and learned to farm 
and handle cattle. In the year last mentioned the family started to 
California with ox-teams but on the way sold tlieir oxen and bought 
mules. They came to the coast tlirough Mexico, and then made their 
way from Mazatlan to San P''rancisco by boat. Enroute they were 
four days and nights without food, even without a drop of water, 
and it was with great ditliculty that Mr. Crabtree's father prevented 
some of the other passengers from throwing the cai)tain overboard. 
They were rescued by another lioat, but did not reach their destination 
until more than two montlis after their emliarkation. 

On August 26, 1852, they went to Santa Cruz, where they 
remained three years. After that they lived at San Juan six years, 
and then at Windsor, on Russian river, in Sonoma coimty, and again 
at San Juan for various periods until 1859, when they came to Tulare 
county, arriving in March. The elder Crabtree brought considerable 
stock to the county. He bought land of a squatter but never proved 
up on it. In 1857 James A. came to Tulare county from Pacheco 
rancho to look over the county, returning to the rest of the family 
later on and then coming with them in 1859. In 1857-58 he engaged 
in the hog business, driving them to the mines, where they found 
ready sale. After that he engaged in the sheep business and after 
moving onto his present ranch in 1873 has farmed, prospected and 
been in the fruit business. James A. bought land in 1868, when he 
bought the projierty on which he now lives. He owns in all one 
hundred and sixty acres, fourteen acres of which is in oranges, and 
the balance devoted to general farming, and every improvement he 
has put here himself. When the family came to this county white 
settlers were few, and Indians had killed several who had come before 
them. Deer, anteloj^e, bear and other game was i^lentiful. In one 
memorable bear hunt Mr. Crabtree came near losing liis life, Init the 
bear was killed and ])r()ved to be the largest grizzly ever seen in 
these parts. There being no fences in the mountains, the settlers 
had to watch their growing crops. Mr. Crabtree has vivid recollec- 
tions of strenuous occurrences at the time of certain big floods 
which are historic. 

In 1860 Mr. Crabtree married Miss Paulina Moreland, a native 
of Missouri; she passed away January 12, 1903. Two of their five 
children are living. Their son, William Crabtree, born in Tulare 
county in 1861, lives near his father. Their son Thomas was born 
in Santa Clara county in 1863, and looks after his father's interests. 
One daughter, Rebecca Maria, died aged about twenty-three, the other 
two children in earlv childhood. 



518 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

As a public-spirited citizen, Mr. Crabtree has always had the 
high regard of all who have known Mm. Deeply concerned for the 
public welfare, he has never failed to respond promptly and gener- 
ously to any demand on behalf of the general good. He is honored 
as a pioneer, as a self-made man and as one who has achieved success 
honestlv and richlv deserves it. 



ELBERT R. MONTGOMERY 

It was in Blount county, Tenn., that Elbert R. Montgomery was 
born, October 10, 1869. He was educated in the public and high 
schools, and early began working with his father, being so employed 
until he reached the age of twenty-one years. He then took up 
farming and stock-raising, which has commanded his attention to 
the present time. 

In 1892 Mr. Montgomery moved from his old home in Tennessee 
to Texas, where he bought land and farmed imtil in 1894, when 
he came to California. Settling in Fresno county, he engaged in 
ranching there, remaining four years. In 1897 he removed to Kings 
county and settled at his present location near Hanford, where with 
his brother John he rented six hundred and forty acres of land for 
three years, at which time they purchased it. Later they sold a 
quarter section of this tract and divided the remainder. At the 
present time Mr. Montgomery owns two hundred and fifteen acres, 
which he devotes very siiccessfully to stock-raising. His ranch is one 
of the best of its class in its vicinity and he gives attention to fine 
stock, which he handles with a success born of long experience and 
with an intimate knowledge of breeding conditions and of the market. 

Fraternally Mr. Montgomery affiliates with the Woodmen of 
the World and with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, to the 
various interests of which he is helpfully devoted, and as a citizen 
he has shown himself to be possessed of a public spirit equal to any 
reasonable demand on behalf of the community. He married Laura 
E. Barnett, December 3, 1905. She was born in Kings county, June 
25, 1880, a daughter of Z. T. Barnett of Hanford. They have one 
child, Elbert Montgomery, who was born October 13, 1906. 



WILBUR COOLIDGE 

A comparatively late comer to California who achieved success 
here was Wilbur Coolidge, who lives on rural free delivery route 
number three, Porterville, Tulare county. Mr. Coolidge was a native 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 519 

of the state of Pennsylvania, born December 24, 1849. He was 
reared and educated in the Keystone state and lived near Wellsboro, 
until the fall of 1908, wlien he came to California and located in 
Tulare county. Most of his years of manhood were passed in the 
work of a skillful joiner. 

In 1873 Mr. Coolidge married Miss Lucy Kimball, of Pennsyl- 
vania, who has borne him six children: Jennie married S. F. 
Bellinger and lives in Philadelphia, Pa.; Leon is married and lives 
in Kent, Ohio ; Purley V. is married and a resident of Tulare county, 
Cal. ; Milton, who is married, is associated with his brother Purley 
in conducting the ranch; Morton, next in order of birth, is in San 
Francisco; Gordon is in school. Mrs. Coolidge's parents, Hiram 
and Katharine Kimball, have passed away. 

Mr. Coolidge bought twenty-six acres of raw land which he 
set to the best grade of oranges. He was interested in everything 
that pertained to the uplift of his community, in schools, in churches, 
and in politics. Especiall.y did the economic questions which have 
so much to do with the general prosjoerity invite his thought, and 
as a voter he considered all things involved very carefully before 
casting his ballot for specific men or measures. Mr. Coolidge passed 
away September 10, 1912, aged sixty-three years. 



FRANK E. HOWE 

Perhaps a man who was liorn at Silverville, San Mateo county, 
Cal., January 31, 1853, could not with entire propriety be called a 
pioneer, but that he was the offspring of pioneers cannot lie doul)ted. 
The place of his birth does not now appear in the Postoffice Guide, 
but in those days it was a mining camp and very much alive. When 
Frank Howe was two years old he was taken by his parents to 
Mariposa county, when he was seven years old they took him to 
Santa C'lara county, and when he was sixteen years of age he had 
at least temporarily shaken off the shadow of the parental roof and 
was working for wages in a sawmill, a hopeful young citizen of a 
great country, with not so very much behind him Init with tiie whole 
world before him. In October, 1875, he came to Kings county and 
in the following year, when he was twenty-three, he was settkvl on 
what is now a portion of his home farm and had made a good start 
with gi-ain-raising and dairying. He has added to his original acreage 
from time to time until lie now owns five hundred and sixty acres, 
most of it given over to pasture and to alfalfa. He is making a 
success with stock, raising a goodly number of horses and cattle 
and many hogs. 



520 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

In his political affiliations Mr. Howe has been for many years a 
Republican, devoted heart and soul to the work that has been done 
by his party and supporting' its men and measures in all cam]iai,2;ns 
and elections. Such political work as he has done has been in the 
public interest, not to secure official preferment for himself. He 
has accepted only one office, that of school trustee, which he filled 
with much ability and credit, using all his influence to improve the 
school in his vicinity. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
church, generously helpful to all its interests. May 22, 1877, he 
married Annie Dibble, who was born in Iowa in 1859 and has a vivid 
recollection of having crossed the plains in a' wagon in 1862 with 
a train of fourteen wagons drawn by oxen and mules. She is a 
daughter of Edwin J. and Hannah (Blend) Dibble, pioneers of Califor- 
nia. They have children named Pxlwin H., Albert P., and Chester M. 
Two died in earlv childhood. Ernest and Frank both died in 1886. 



ROLAND L. KINCAID 

The father of R. L. Kincaid was James A. Kincaid, who came 
across the plains to California in 1850. took up land in Tulare 
county, about the present site of Tulare City, moved to Springville, 
and is now living at Porterville, Cal.. his wife, Mary Bibbins, having 
passed away in 1904. Their son was l)orn in Mountain View, Santa 
Clara county, on October 2, 1871, and in 1879 was taken by his parents 
to Tulare county, to a home on the ranch on which he now lives. It 
embraces four hundred and eighty acres and is devoted ])rincipally 
to grain-growing. 

In the public school in Frazier valley Mr. Kincaid received 
his primary education and it was by three years' study in Los Angeles 
that he attained his graduation. On October 2, 1892, he married 
Miss Alice Weddle, a native of AVashington county, Ind.. born in 1873. 
.She has borne him seven children: Gertrude A.. Ava L.. Harold R., 
Mary B.. Bessie I., and Erma A. Edith died in infancy. The 
four eldest have finished their grammar school studies. Mrs. 
Kincaid 's father, Arne L. Weddle, a native of Virginia, has passed 
away; her mother, Lucinda Motsinger Weddle, is living in Dinuba. 

As a farmer, Mr. Kincaid is up-to-date in his methods and his 
success is such as is achieved only by close attention to the work 
of the farm and by the application of an intimate knowledge of its 
requirements. He is not active in a political way but has the interests 
of the commimity at heart and, officially and otherwise, has done 
much for the school in the Frazier valley district. It is probable 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 521 

that no other important question appeals to him so strongly as 
does that of public education, hut there is no demand on his public 
spirit that does not receive prompt and generous response. 



MICHAEL M. LYNCH 

In the county of Limerick, Ireland, Michael M. Lynch was born 
in 1849. There he was reared to manhood and educated and when 
he was twenty years old, he and a cousin came with his brother, 
who had been in New York a year, to California via Panama. In 
his native land he had worked on farms and in order to get a start 
in America, had made up his mind to come west. California had 
been his objective point, and in his journey to the other side of the 
continent he was destined to encovinter discouraging vicissitudes. The 
vessel on which he started was disabled and wrecked and put back 
into New York harbor twice. Then he made a successful departure 
and came to San Francisco, arriving in June, 1869. After a short 
stay in the Bay City, he went to Santa Cruz county, where he 
remained from late in 1869 until in April, 1873. Then, locating in 
Tulare county, he pre-empted and homesteaded land and engaged 
in farming and raising horses, sheep, hogs and cattle and was so suc- 
cessful that he was enabled to buy land from time to time until he 
owned more than two thousand acres. 

At this time, Mr. Lynch, though he has sold off a considerable 
acreage, retains a large holding. In the days when he farmed and 
ran cattle he had many exciting encounters with cattle thieves. He 
sold the last of his cattle about a year ago and at his ranch, seven 
miles and a half northeast of Porterville, is living in retirement 
from active enterprise, or as he expressed it is "taking life easy." 
He has been too busy to take any active part in political work, but 
he has always been deeply interested in economic questions and has 
been ready at all times to do his utmost for the welfare of the 
community. 

In 1885 Mr. Lynch married Miss Fannie Grant, a native of Ire- 
land, who has been a resident of California since 1880. 



W. H. McCRACKEN 

In Hickory county, Mo., W. H. McCracken, the successful 
orchardist of the Woodlake district of Tulare county, was bora 
February 8, 186L There he made his home until he was twenty 



522 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

years old. Then, after spending some time in West Texas, a year 
and a half on a range in the Panhandle district, he returned to 
railroading, in which he had had some experience in his native state. 
In 1887 he came to San Bernardino, Cal., and after twelve years' 
residence there began planting orchards. Some of his early work was 
for F. E. Harding and the J. H. Pattee Land Company, for whom 
he planted two hundred and fifty acres, the first one hundred and 
fifty acres thirteen years ago, mostly with his own hands. Having 
completed this work, he spent a year and a half at Lindsay in 
orange culture, then came to Woodlake valley for the Woodlake 
Orchard Company, the first purchase of whose large holdings was 
a tract of eight thousand acres. It has since made other purchases 
and has sold off fifteen hundred acres to the Citrus Land Company. 
Now it has about twenty-five hundred acres in one tract, six hundred 
acres of which was planted before 1913, when the company planned 
to plant quite extensively in the near future. Its trees range in 
age from one year to four or five years. 

During recent years Mr. McCracken has ably filled the position 
of superintendent. His prominent connection with the business of 
Captain Thomas of Liudsay is well known. Mrs. McCracken died 
some years ago, and he and his son, C. P. McCracken, live on the 
Woodlake ranch, which has electric railway conuection with Visalia. 
They are promoting the development of an orange and lemon orchard 
of thirty-three acres, twelve of which is devoted to lemons, the balance 
to oranges. As a citizen Mr. McCracken is helpful in a truly public- 
spirited way and is independent in politics and a staunch protectoi- 
of home industrv. 



MICHAEL F. EOURKE 

A native son of the Emerald Isle, descended from families 
famous in history and tradition, Michael F. Eourke was born 
January 22, 1860. He was brought to the United States by his 
parents in 186.3 and lived in the city of New York until 1876, when 
he came to California and located in the Lakeside district in Kings 
county. In 1889 he went to Coalinga, Fresno county, where he was 
engaged in general farming, devoting some of his time to teamiui;-. 
It is a matter of local history that he hauled the first oil rig set up 
in that district, and hauled the first oil that was shipped from the 
oil fields. He owned three hundred and twenty acres of land where 
the Empire Oil Company and the Castle Oil Company are now 
operating. There he remained until 1904, prospering fairly and 
winning honors as a citizen, then came back to Kings county and 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 523 

resumed farming here. lu 1910 he settled on the land which is now 
his home place. He owns in all one hundred and sixty acres which he 
devotes to general farming. The place is improved, has adequate 
buildings and modern machinery and is operated in a scientific way 
that insures the success of its proprietor. 

In the Civil war Mr. Rourke's father, William Rourke, won 
honors as a Federal soldier in the Eighteenth New York Cavalry, 
Volunteers, and as the son of a veteran he holds membership in 
the local body of the Sons of Veterans. He affiliates also with the 
Woodmen of the World and with the Foresters of America. As a 
citizen he is progressive and public-spirited, ready at all times to do 
his full share in promotion of the general welfare. He married 
Miss Ruth E. Garner, November 21, 1885. She was born near Reno, 
Nev., April 11, 1864. To this worthy couple have been born four 
daughters : Anna S., wife of W. J. McDade of Los Angeles ; Irene, 
Ruth E., and Mildred Frances. Irene died in 1889. Mr. and Mrs. 
Rourke have an ever-widening circle of acquaintances in which they 
are always welcomed, by reason of their friendly interest in all 
forward movements and they retain the friendship of all with whom 
thev come in contact. 



JOHN MONTGOMERY 

In that picturesque and productive state, Tennessee, in the 
county of Blount, John Montgomery, a resident of the Hanford district 
of Kings county, Cal., and one of the well-known stockmen of the 
central part of the state, was born in February, 1861. He attended 
public school and State Normal school until he was eighteen years 
old and applied himself with diligence to his studies. Then until he 
attained his majority he helped his father on the home farm, and 
his independent career in business was begun as a farmer in his 
native state, remaining there until 1884, when he came to California. 
The first two years in this state he passed in the Mussel Slough 
district, where he and his brother leased a section of land. Subse- 
quently he lived six years in Fresno county, but returned to the 
vicinity of Hanford, where he now owns two hundred and sixty-five 
acres, which he devotes to the raising of cattle, hogs and horses, and 
in this he has been very successful. He has gradually improved his 
homestead until it is one of the most valuable and attractive in the 
district, outfitted with good buildings and all of the accessories 
requisite to its profitable operation. As a citizen he has proven himself 
public-spirited and helpful to the best interests of the eommunitv. 



524 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

A. FRED DODGE 

A native son of Kings county, Cal., who is winning a commendahle 
success on the home soil, is A. Fred Dodge, who is descended from 
old American families and whose family name has been prominent 
in all periods of the history of the United States. He was born 
July 22. 1877, and attended the pxiblic schools until he was fifteen 
years old and after that he gave his services to his father until 
he was twenty-one. at which time he was deeded a tract of land. 
He was liis father's partner, and they gave their attention to dry 
farming, hog-raising and dairying, in which they were very successful. 
In 1907 Mr. Dodge moved on his eighty-acre tract, which he has 
develojjed into a fine ranch and home, with a good residence and 
barns and ample outbuildings of all kinds. His methods of cultiva- 
tion are thoroughly scientific and he is probably as successful as a 
breeder of hogs as any rancher in his vicinity. 

On October 3, 1901, Mr. Dodge married Miss Nellie E. Van"\near, 
a native of Michigan, born December 14, 1879, who was brought to 
California by her parents when she was about three years old. ]\Irs. 
Dodge has had three children who are here mentioned in the order of 
their birth: Richard V., Doris and Dortha. Doris died in 1904-. 
Mr. and Mrs. Dodge take an interest in all that pertains to the public 
welfare and are generously helpful to all propositions promulg-ated 
for the general good. He has served his fellow townsmen as a trustee 
of schools and as such has been influential in elevating the local stan- 
dard of education. He is a member of the Independent Order of 
Red Men, in the work of which he is practically interested. 



JOHN WHITMORE DOCKSTADER 

A splendid example of the selfmade, self-reliant man. who from 
early boyhood has earned his own livelihood, is John Whitmore Dock- 
stader, now prominent as a business man and an official at Lemoore, 
Kings county. He was born in Montgomery county, N. Y., November 
23, 1870, but was reared in Missouri, where he had been taken by his 
parents when a small boy. When he was fourteen years old he found 
himself obliged to earn his way and going to Nebraska he worked 
there for about a year and then went to Barton county. Mo., remaining 
there three years. At this time he had reached his nineteenth year 
and he. decided to come to California and in 1889 he stopped at 
Tulare where he remained twelve months and later engaged at farming 
near Porterville for two or three years. For the next five years he 
conducted a store and bakerv at Porterville, but gave that up and 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 525 

during the ensuing four years he was in tlie barber business at San 
Francisoo, whence he came to Lemoore in 1899 to open a barber 
sho)), which he conthicted until he became a partner in the grocery 
business of L. S. Stepp. After four years he disposed of his interest 
in the grocerj- business to Stepp and bought back his barber shop, 
which he operated a year. In 190.'] he liought the draying lousiness of 
Mrs. Thomas Winsett at Lemoore, in which his brother, Hiram Dock- 
stader, soon acquired a lialf interest. Besides doing a general draying 
and moving business they handle ice in large cpiantities, distributing it 
throughout the city. Tlieir enterprise requires the use of four wagons 
and teams, besides a big Packard motor truck which was the first 
brought to Kings county. 

In 1899 Mr. Dockstader bought eighty acres of land three miles 
soutli of Lemoore on which he raises stock and alfalfa. He has also 
an eighty-acre dairj- ranch, mostly under alfalfa, and milks fifty 
cows. This land he rents on a cash basis, as he does also forty acres, 
nine miles south, foi- farming purposes. He has found time from his 
l)usiness to devote to the public welfare, and in 1909 accepted appoint- 
ment as city trustee of Lemoore, to fill the vacancy caused by the 
resignation of that office by his old grocery partner, L. S. Stepp ; 
at the expiration of the term he was elected to the same office for the 
ensuing term. In 1908 he was elected a member of the school 
board of Lemoore. Fraternally he associates with the Circle, and 
with the Woodmen of the World. In 1894 he married Miss Lulu Kelly, 
a native of Tulare, and a daughter of H. C. Kelly, who long farmed 
at Porterville and who now makes his home with his sons. Hiram 
Dockstader, father of John W., is a member of his son's household. 
He was born in New York state, married Louada Whitmore, and 
came to Kings county in 1908. John W. and Lulu (Kelly) Dock- 
stader have two children — Lansford and John W. Dockstader, Jr. 



CARL AUGUST PETERSON 

The prominent orange grower of Tulare county, Cal., whose 
name is sufficient to direct attention to tliis brief narrative of his life, 
was born in Sweden in 1871 and when he was nineteen years old 
came to the United States. He first located in Iowa, whence he 
moved to Humboldt county, Cal., in 1891. There he remained seven- 
teen years, conducting a dairy business and was foreman in a 
mechanic's shop at Ferndale. In the fall of 1908 he came to Tulare 
county and bought twenty-five acres of land. His first work here 
was the i)!anting of thirty acres to trees for others. The entire 



526 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

pi'oduct of his place is divided between Valencia and Navel oranges 
wliich are just coming into bearing. 

In 1902 Mr. Peterson married Miss Theoline Swanson, who has 
borne him three children: Ivan L. and Edna H., in school, and 
Paul Wesley. A progressive man of great public spirit Mr. Peterson 
is as solicitous for the welfare of the community as for the success 
of his own enterprise and never fails to respond to any reasonable 
demand upon him for the general good. 



A. J. WOODS 

In Andrew county, Mo., A. J. Woods, of Tulare county, Cal., 
was born. The time of his birth was Octo])er 5, 1845, and he came to 
California in the spring of 1863, when he was between sixteen and 
seventeen years old. The youth settled near the site of Lodi, San 
Joaquin county, where he developed to manhood and farmed till 
1888. Then he came to Tulare county and located at Waukena and 
went into wheat raising. He gradually increased the volume of his 
business until he was farming, some years, as many as two thousand 
acres. In 1890 he bought his present ranch of one hundred and ninety 
acres at Tulare, a productive dairy and alfalfa farm, which he now 
rents out. He has always raised fine horses, and recently sold a two- 
year-old colt for $250. 

Miss Eva Piersou, a native of Indiana, whom Mr. AVoods wedded 
in 1872, bore him children as follows: Albert B., of Stockton, Minnie 
and Claude E. His present wife — their marriage was celebrated in 
1907 — was Miss Lizzie Moore. Mr. aud Mrs. AVoods are active 
members of the Tulare Grange, in which tl'ey have held many offices. 
For thirty-five years (since 1877) he has been a Granger, nearly 
all the time holding high positions in the oi-ganization. In fact he 
is one of the oldest Grangers in the state. Tulare Grange No. 198 
was instituted in 1886 and now includes sixty members. It has been 
an instriiment for the pi'omotion of man.v jniblic interests, one of 
its notable achievements having been its agency in securing the 
Sequoia National Park, in the mountains. The Mooney Grove Park, 
north of Tulare, was promoted by Tulare Grange and a committee 
of its members will handle the money raised by the board of super- 
visors for the improvement of the property. In a general way, this 
Grange has, during the last twelve years, done much to better high- 
ways in the county and to bring about the construction of good 
roads. Mrs. Woods was its worthy master in 1911. Its officers were 
in 1912: Master, Mrs. C. A. Sayer; lecturer, Mrs. A. J. AVoods; 
overseer, Mrs. L. C. Lawson; steward, Frank Stiles; assistant stew- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 527 

ard, Thomas Jacobs; chaplain, Mrs. Emma Loman; treasurer, George 
Watts; secretary, Mrs. Bertha Morris; gatekeeper, A. J. Woods. 
Mr. Woods is a Mason. In San Joaqnin county he served for some 
years as a member of the board of education of his town. 



PHILLIP AULMAN 

Another of those good German citizens who have so nobly done 
their part in the development of California was Phillip Aulman, who 
came to the state in 1855 and died at Visalia, Tulare county, in 
July, 1910. Born in the Fatherland in 1827, he came to America when 
he was twenty-two years old and in 1849 he settled in Iowa and 
engaged in farming. After six years there he came across the 
plains to California, where he put in his first twelve months at 
mining, meeting with indifferent success in the venture. Subsequently 
he turned his attention to farming and dairying near Suisun, Solano 
county, and later he operated in the vicinity of Gilroy, Santa Clara 
county. At length he went back to Iowa, farming there until 1864, 
when he went to Oregon and Washington, and there prospered as a 
dairyman. He came again to this state in 1869 and lived for a time 
in the Packwood district, 1'ulare county, whence he subsequently 
moved to the vicinity of Visalia, which was his home for many years, 
and where his widow now resides. There he engaged in dairying 
and developed a farm of a hundred and sixty acres. 

In 1850, five years before he started overland from Iowa to 
California, Mr. Aulman married Miss Parthenia E. Hughes, a native 
of Indiana, born in 18.33. Her experiences enable- her to relate many 
interesting incidents of their trip across the plains. She is one of 
the dependable business women of Tulare county, recognizing all 
responsibilities and discharging all obligations, carrying out very 
ably the plans made by her late husband for the conduct and improve- 
ment of the home interests. 



LOUIS F. PLATT 

This progressive and popular architect and contractor of Tulare 
City, Cal., was born in Philadelphia, Pa., in 1874, and began his 
education in the public schools of his native city. After a five 
years' course of study he was graduated from the University of 
Pennsylvania, where he was fitted for the professions of architect 
and civil engineer. He devoted himself to a practice of the two 



528 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

professions in the east till 1908, when he came to California and, 
locating in Tulare, took up contracting and building. It should be 
recorded that in New Yoi"k City he designed sixty residences and 
store buildings, in Wilmington, Del., one hundred and seventy-seven, 
and in York, Pa., thirty-two, all of brick and stone construction. In 
1905 he designed a beautiful residence for A. M. Clegg, of Brookl\^l, 
N. Y., which is one of the show places on the Ocean Park and Burly 
road boulevard. At the time it surpassed in cost and magnificence 
any other house in the vicinity. 

In beginning his work in Tulare county Mr. Piatt recognized the 
necessity of combining contracting and building with his practice of 
architecture, and he was the first builder there of the bungalow now 
so ]3opular throughout California. He has designed and erected 
residences in and around Tulare City for Dr. Charles, George TI. 
Castle, F. N. Schnable, W. E. Flagg" (for whom he built two). W. 
Sampsons, A. Primmes, F. E. Standley, A. Frazer, Jose]ih Myers, 
Dr. C. E. Harper, F. Newcity, E. F. Treadway, Mrs. Lathrope, A. 
Martin and others, and stores for W. L. Weidman and A. W. 
Wheeler. His work both in design and construction takes rank with 
the best in the state and his services are coming into greater demand 
with each passing year. Perhaps the concrete buildings on South 
J street constitute the most consi^icuous monument to his artistry 
as an architect and his skill and integrity as a Ijuilder. Personally 
he has become popular in a wide circle of acquaintances and socially 
lie affiliates witli the Eagles and the Modern Woodmen of the World. 
In 1904 Mr. Piatt married Miss Sarah E. Bowers, a native of 
Pennsylvania. 



FEANK BLAKELEY 

Among the most active and enternrisina: citizens of Kinsrs countv. 
and a progressive advocate of a:ood roads, is Frank Blakelev of 
Lemoore. who was horn in Towa, April 22, 18fi9. In 188"2, when 
he was thirteen vears old. he came with his father, James M. Blakelev, 
to Kings countv. where the elder Blakelev farmed near Grangeville. 
then movinsr on land five and a half miles southeast of Lemoore, 
the first aereasre he purchased in the county. Frank Blakelev lived 
with his father until 1890, then came to Lemoore and began farming 
on rented land, but soon began to buy land and finallv came to own 
ten thousand acres in the lake bottom. His policy was to buv and 
sell as occasion offered and in a general wav to improve his holdings, 
which he did by constructing levees and ditches. He began operating 
there in 1898 and 1899. and farmed on a large scale, having under 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 529 

cultivation from year to year from one thousand to twenty thousand 
acres. He has done more ditch and levee work than any one else 
in that vicinity and he was the first there to use steam machinery, 
such as traction engines and combined harvesters, sometimes owning 
and operating fi\'e outfits at a time. In 1905 he sowed twelve thousand 
acres to wheat Init lost the entire crop because of rust. In 1906 
he sowed twenty-four thousand acres to wheat, twenty thousand of 
which was his own proi)erty. and all the time from September 1 to 
February 1 was consumed in iiutting in the seed. Because of flood 
this crop with the exception of five thousand acres was lost, and since 
then he has conservatively farmed on a small scale. Meanwhile he 
has bought and sold land in the lake district and has operated exten- 
sively as a contractor, constructing ditches and leveling land. 

For ten years Mr. Blakeley has l)een a city trustee of Lemoore; 
he has been trustee of Lemoore grammar school, and in 1910 was 
elected a member of the board of supervisors of Kings county. He 
is manager of the Lemoore baseball team and during the past four 
j'ears has ably promoted the sport here and round about. If he has 
a hobby it is good roads, and since he has been a supervisor all the 
roads in his district have been greatly improved under his personal 
supervision, he having repaired twenty miles of road and built ten 
miles of new road. Fraternally he afKliates with the Woodmen of 
the World, the Modern Woodmen, the Red Men, and the Foresters. 
On September 22, 1891, he married Miss Clara M. Cadwell, and they 
have had seven children, one of whom has died. The following are 
the names of the surviving ones : Ambrose, Ervine, Floyd, Frank, Jr., 
Melvin and Albert. 



HIRAM MOORE 

The life story of a jiioneer, however briefly or however crudely 
told, must of necessity be of interest for two reasons — it inevitably 
possesses historic interest and human interest. Out of the fragments 
of personal experience history is largely constituted, for when it is 
finished it is a composite of biographical material. The history of 
man is the history of the country in which he lives. Such life histories 
as that of Hiram Moore, a native of New York state and a pioneer 
of 1849 in ('alifornia, are in the aggregate the material from which 
our local history must be constructed. It was among the 49ers 
that Hiram Moore came across the jilains, on the overland trail, to 
the then ha If- fabulous land of gold. He mined in Nevada City, 
Nevada county, Cal., with varying success until 1868, when he settled 
at Porterville, Tulare county. Later he was the i)roprietor and land- 



530 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

lord of the old railroad hotel at Tiptou. It was in 1873 that he came 
to Tulare. At that time, according to good authority, there were 
only four houses within the present limit of the city; but there was 
travel through the jjlace and it was beginning to attract attention. 
By 1876 the settlement had advanced somewhat and representatives 
of one of the political parties erected a liberty pole, the first that 
ever stood up against the sky above the town. Mr. Moore helped to 
select that pole and to put it in place. During the pioneer days of 
Tulare he filled the office of justice of the peace. It is significant 
of his versatility that he was given charge of one of the first stationary 
engines set up in the town. He affiliated with the Ancient Order of 
United Workmen of Tulare until his removal, late in life, to Bakers- 
field, where he passed away in 1899. He married Jane Atkins, a 
native of Scotland, and they had a son and a daughter, Hiram Mooie, 
of Fresno, Cal., and Lizzie, Mrs. A. J. Woods, of Tulare. There will 
be found in this work a biogra|)hical sketch of Mr. Woods, which 
includes interesting mention of the activity of Mrs. Woods in connec- 
tion with the Grange movement in Tulare county. 

Hiram Moore, Jr., is a railroad man in the employ of the Santa 
Fe. He began railroading while a very young man at Tipton and 
was a conductor on the Southern Pacific, and in that capacit}^ when 
he was twenty-one years of age he took one of the first two trains 
that were ever run over the Tehachapi mountains. His mother still 
survives and makes her home with her daughter, Mrs. A. J. Woods, 
being now seventy-four years old. Where the Rochdale store in 
Tulare now stands the firm of Sisson, Wallace & Company had a 
general store some years ago, and on the fourth of July, ISliy, 
wishing a flag for their flagstaff they found it impossible to procure 
one. Finally the material was procured from them and Mrs. Moore 
and her daughter, Mrs. Woods, then a young lady, assisted in the 
making of the first flag ever used in a celebration at Tulare. 



JOHN WILLIAM HARVEY 

The successful vineyardist of Waukena, Tulare county, Cal, John 
W. Harvey, is a native of Cumberland county, Ky., and was born 
October 2, 1863. lie attended public school until he was seventeen 
years old, then turned his attention to farming for which he had fitted 
himself by practical experience during all the days of his youth. In 
1885 he went to Hill county, Tex., where for two years he grew corn 
and made crops of cotton. Then he returned to his old home, and 
after remaining there for a short time came in December, 1888, to 
Tulare county and settled on the place which is now his home farm. 



TULABE AND KINGS COUNTIES 531 

none of which, however, did he purchase until 1890, when he became 
the owner of fourteen acres of bare land. Meanwhile, he devoted 
one year to the service of the Kings River Lumber Company. He 
has made other land purchases from time to time, as he has prospered 
and laid aside money for the purpose, and he now owns ninety-five 
acres of good land in the Waukena neighborhood. For the past 
fifteen years he has been the proprietor of a combined harvester, 
which he has operated in season and which he has made a source 
of considerable yearly profit. He is a farmer of skill and resource, 
who knows his ground and his seed and every condition of locality 
and climate that can possibly affect crop production, and his success 
is achieved not only by industry, but by carefial attention to every 
detail of the work in hand. 

Fraternally Mr. Harvey affiliates with the Fraternal Aid Asso 
elation. In his political alliance he is a Democrat. On October 3, 
1893, he married Miss Carrie F. Torrey, who was born in St. Louis, 
Mo., November 16, 1862, and they have three children, Elizabeth, 
Catherine and John W. 



WALTER -S. BURR 

A loyal son of the Golden State, who despite discouragements 
has become one of its successful ranchers, is Walter S. Burr, whose 
birthplace was in Yolo county, seven miles west of Woodland, and 
the date of his nativity was January 22, 1857. His childhood was 
passed in Yolo and Tehama counties and in 1869, when he was about 
twelve years old, he was brought to Tulare county. His father, 
B. F. Burr, was a farmer who tried his fortimes with the soil near 
Tulare a short time, then went to the eastern part of the county 
and operated a sawmill and handled lumber until the spring of 1876, 
when he moved to the Mussel Slough district, where he soon became 
known through his activity in the promotion of the construction 
of the People's ditch. For several years he lived on and farmed 
lands which were ultimately appropriated by the railroad company, 
but he had in the meantime bought forty acres adjoining, in the 
next section, and consequently was not left without a home. There 
he planted a vineyard and an orchard and lived until 1886, when 
he joined a colony in Mexico. He I'eturned to Tulare in 1896 and 
died there soon afterward, aged seventy-one years. 

As a farmer Walter S. Burr may be said to have begun at the 
bottom of the ladder. He acquired a claim to a quarter-section of 
land seven miles south of Hanford and homesteaded it. About the 
same time he pre-empted forty acres, and later, when fortune liad 



532 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

smiled on liiin, be bought two hundred acres adjoining his original 
purchases and now has four hundred acres. He devotes himself to 
farming, stock-raising and dairying, owning seventy-five head of 
cattle, many horses and mules and about two hundred and fifty hogs. 
One hundred acres of his land is in alfalfa. Water for irrigation he 
draws from the Lakeside ditch, and on bis i)lace are ample wells for 
his stock as well as for irrigation, be having two pumping plants. 
In association with bis sons be operated an alfalfa thresher for two 
years. He was active in securing irrigation ditches for his part of 
the county and the legislative passage of the no-fence law. 

For three terms aggregating twelve years be ably filled the office 
of supervisor, representing the second district, and during one of the 
terms be was president of the board. His activity in the work of 
the local Grange brought him election as secretary of that body. 
Fraternally he affiliates with the Woodmen of the World and with 
the Foresters. 

Mr. Burr married, December 30, 1884, Mary L. Graham, daughter 
of John Graham, a pioneer in the vicinity of Visalia, and they have 
three children, Carl T., Maud and Reel G. Maud is the wife of E. H. 
Howe. Mr. Burr has won bis success in life by the exercise of those 
qualities which enter into the character of all self-made men, and 
those who know him best know that be has prospered honestly and 
deservedly. 



EDWIN H. HOWE 

One of tlie many native Californians who has made a success 
of stock-raising and farming in the country round about Hanford, 
Kings county, Cal., is the son of Tulare county mentioned above. 
Edwin H. Howe is the son of Frank E. Howe, and was born April 14, 
1879. He was reared to manhood in the Lakeside district, now in 
Kings county, and educated in public schools near his home. Asso- 
ciated in a business way with his brother, Albert P. Howe, and their 
father, be farmed in the Lake bottoms from 1898 until 1906, when 
the filling up of the old lake bed brought an end to their enterprise. 
They had been successful there, however, and Mr. Howe and his 
brother bought from their father the one hundred and sixty-acre 
ranch, nine miles southwest of Hanford, which is now the home of 
the former. In 1906 he bought his brother's interest in the place, 
and since then he has bought from the AValker estate one hundred 
and sixty acres adjoining the homestead ranch on the north, in 
the west one-half of section thirty-four, ranges nineteen and twenty- 
one. He devotes bis energies and his capital to the raising of horses. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 533 

mules and hogs; at least that is his principal business, though he 
does general farming and has seventy-five acres in alfalfa. Formerly 
he gave attention to dairying, but he is converting his land to an 
alfalfa ranch as rapidly as is expedient. All of the improvements 
on his homestead, including house, barns and fences, he has made 
since he bought the place. He o))tains water for irrigation from the 
Last Cliance ditch and the People's ditch and has on his place a 
well for his stock and domestic use. He is operating rented land 
also, notably one hundi'ed and sixty acres west of him, which belongs 
to his father, and eiglity acres still further west, growing grain and 
alfalfa on both tracts. 

In February, 1905, Mr. Howe married Maud Burr, daughter of 
"Walter Burr, and she has borne him three children : Edwin Orval, 
Lucile and Herbert L., who died in infancy. Mr. Howe's success in 
life has been won by his own effort and, as has been seen, not without 
his having to make the best of serious discouragements. The optimism 
which has borne him up in his business struggles thus far gives 
him hope for the future, not a little of which is based on his belief 
in the destiny of Hanford and its tributary territory, for the up- 
building of which he is ready at any time to give public-spirited aid. 



FRANK L. BLAIN 

The well known farmer and cattleman whose name heads this 
sketch is a native of California who made his start and has won suc- 
cess in life within a few miles of the place of his birth. He first saw 
the light of day in Visalia, Tulare county, in 1880. After finishing a 
course at the public schools of the town he took a six months' course 
at the Stockton Business College in 1890, and in the following year he 
took over all of his father's large ranch interests, which he con- 
ducted successfully during the ensuing three years. In 1904 he moved 
to his present ranch of eighty acres, to which he has added one hun- 
dred and sixty acres op])osite, built him a comfortable bungalow and 
in a general way got readj^ for success as a farmer and cattle raiser. 
He put twenty acres in peaches of the Tuscan and Muir varieties, gave 
forty acres to alfalfa, ]irepared for extensive operations as a stock- 
man, and cleared and cleaned up the ranch, greatly improving the 
property in every way. In j^artnership with his sister, he has taken 
possession of all of the real estate left by their father and is managing 
the same with much success. He devotes himself princi]ially to the 
raising of beef cattle, is acquiring large cattle ranges and bids fair 
soon to rank among the heading cattlemen of the county. He and his 
sister have seven tlioiisand acres of range land in the mountains, on 



534 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

which they have from seven hundred to eight hundred head of cattle, 
also thirteen hundred and sixty acres of good cattle land north of 
Visalia. He owns one hundred and sixty acres near the San Joaquin 
Hill. Mr. Blain controls a total of five good ranch i^roperties in 
Tulare county. 

Busy as he necessarily is with his cattle-raising industry, Mr. 
Blain finds some time to devote to general interests, especially to such 
as affect men who get their living off the soil. As an instance, it 
should be noted that he is a director of the People's Co-operative 
Ditch Company, a concern which is doing good work in the way of 
irrigation. He is not an active politician, but views all public ques- 
tions with a patriotic intelligence. In November, 1906, he married 
Miss Bertha Givens, of Californian birth, and they have a daughter 
whom thev have named Carroll. 



DANIEL ABBOTT 

Born in Washington county, Ark., January 3, 1836, Daniel Abbott 
has been a resident of California since 1857 and has attained much 
prominence in the San Joaquin Valley. He was a son of Joshua Abbott, 
who was born in Pennsylvania in 1800 and had come to California in 
1850 and engaged in mining for a time. He returned to Arkansas and 
farmed, and here his son Daniel was reared and trained to the work 
on the farm, having but little chance to go to school. In May, 1857, 
the family started for California overland with oxen and i^rairie 
schooners ; there was a large train and the party arrived in Calaveras 
county in the following October. 

In Calaveras county Daniel Abbott farmed on a small scale and 
in the year 1861 he went to Tulare county, settled near Porterville 
and engaged in raising stock. The rains came that winter with such 
force that there was a flood and for a:lmost forty days it fell, every- 
thing portable was washed away and the settlers had difficulty in 
saving themselves. Mr. Abbott Imilt a raft of some lumber he had 
and in this way saved the family from perishing. He was offered $500 
for it after he had finished it. In 1862 he went to Mariposa county 
and engaged in contracting for wood for the mines, but two years 
later went to Stanislaus county, bought land, and embarked in the 
sheep business. Upon the settling up of that i)art of the valley ]\Ir. 
Abbott came again to Tulare county in 1874, bringing with him his 
band of sheep and he finally became the owner of thirty-nine hundred 
and sixty acres of land, for which he i)aid an average of $3 jier acre. 
He was, in all, in the cattle and sheep business for about forty years, 
at the end of which time he sold his land and stock and bought prop- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 535 

erty at Portevville, where he erected two business blocks and several 
residences. About 1902 he purchased the home in which he now lives, 
his object in removing into the city being to further tlie educational 
advantages for his children, and here they have since made their home. 

In 1880 Mr. Abbott married Mrs. Frances Elizalieth (Fine) 
Bursey, a native of Arkansas, who bore him nine children; five 
daughters survive, viz.: Mrs. Louisa Mahatfrey, Mrs. Lana Nancollis, 
Winnifred and Minnie (twins) and Emma Lee. Those children who 
are deceased are Martha, Arlesa, Charles and Daniel. 

In 1886 occurred the death of his father, who was born in Ohio 
in 1800. Mr. Abbott, who has been a cripple since August 24, 1857, 
has been by his infirmity forbidden the activities of some other men 
and he has been too closely confined to his home to take a prominent 
part in polities, but he has been a member of the school board and 
has found other ways to serve his fellow townsmen. He is fond of 
reminiscence and sometimes tells some interesting stories of his over- 
laud journey to California in 1857. Once when the party was en- 
camped one hundred and twenty-five miles this side of Salt Lake, In- 
dians stampeded the cattle and wounded some of the men. Mr. Abbott 
himself was shot while coming in from guard duty, and got to the 
camping place only to find that his comrades had moved on. He was 
able soon to rejoin them, however, but one of his companions, an inti- 
mate friend, who was shot at the time, died soon after. 



JOSEPH LEWIS FICKLIN 

It was in Scott county, in old Kentucky, the cradle of "Western 
history, that Joseph Lewis Ficklin was born November 27, 1831. 
When he was four years old he was taken to Missouri, where he re- 
mained until 1852, scarcely leaving the neighborhood of his home. 
Then he came to California as a gold-seeker, remaining four years, 
lie returned to Missouri, to come out again to the coast country in 
1886, when he settled on his present homestead. His first journey 
across the plains was made with oxen. There were with the ]nirty 
four hundred cows and fifty head of work cattle, and the trip con- 
sumed six months time. His second journey to California was made 
by rail in four days. 

In Missouri Mr. Ficklin gained such education as was afforded 
by the public school near liis home. He married Miss Elizabeth 
Turner, a native of Missouri, who bore him one child and passed away 
in 1864. In 1865 he married Miss Sarah A. Davis, who was born in 
Crawford county, Mo., and they had five children, two of whom died 
in infancy. Tlic survivoi-s arc William Kennett Ficklin. in Yellow- 



536 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

stone Park, Anna Fioklin, wlio married F. 0. Fridley, and Mirtlia, 
who is Mrs. H. A. Powell. Benjamin Fioklin, Joseph L. Ficklin's 
father, was born in Kentucky in 1808 and his father, John Fioklin, 
participated in the Black Hawk war, ser\ing as captain under Col. 
Dick Johnson. The father of Sarah A. (Davis) Ficklin was born in 
Virginia, in 1798, and her mother in Scott county, Ky., in 1802. 

When Mr. Ficklin came to Tulare county he bought eighty acres 
of land at $10 an acre which was at that time devoted to wheat, and 
he helped to harvest grain where the city of Exeter now stands. Dur- 
ing the last four years he has converted his ranch to a fruit farm and 
vineyard. One of Mrs. Ficklin's brothers came to California in 1850 
and four of them died in Tulare county. Mr. Fioklin has held ]ml)lic 
office and affiliates with the Masonic order. Politically he is a Demo- 
crat. As a citizen he has in many ways demonstrated his public spirit. 



GEORGE WARNER CODY 

Near Pontiac, Mich., George Warner Cody was born January 'M, 
18-12. When he was seven years old he was taken to Wisconsin, on 
the removal of his parents to that state. From there they went to 
Nebraska, where he lived until 1874, except during the term of his 
military service, variously employed in milling, merchandising, farm- 
ing and other useful work. In 1861, at Fort Leavenworth, Kans., he 
enlisted in Company H, Eighth Regiment, Kansas Volunteer Infantry, 
and his recollections of the Civil war, in which he was in fifteen gen- 
eral engagements and many skirmishes, includes scenes at Perryville, 
Stone River, Chickamauga and a number of Confederate prisons. After 
his capture at Chickamauga lie was confined at Ringgold, then in the 
bull pen at Atlanta, then in Libby prison, then at Pemberton, then 
at Danville, then at Audersonville, then at Charleston, then at 
Florence. He escaped from ^\.ndersonville and was recajitured while 
attempting to cross Flint River. His exjieriences at Florence were 
terminated by his exchange. He was one of six out of one hundred 
who were liberated, the others being kept until the end of the war. 
After his exchange he was sent to Annapolis, Md., where he was 
paroled and forwarded to Fort Leavenworth. 

After Mr. Cody was discharged at Fort Leavenworth he returned 
to Nebraska, where he was wai'mly welcomed after his fifteen months' 
incarceration in Confederate i)rison pens, and took up farming. Later 
he 0]3erated a grist mill and sold goods until 187-1, when he came to 
Tulare county and located near Armona. He bought one hundred and 
sixty acres of land south of Hanford and one hundred and sixty acres 
two miles south of Lemoore and farmed tracts of rented land aggre- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 537 

gating seventeen lumdred acres. From 1874 to 1881 he raised grain 
and broom corn, tlien sold his property and for the next five years 
lived at Los Angeles. Next we find him located near Santa Ana, where 
he ])lanted twentj'-seven acres to walnut trees and fifteen acres to 
raisins. Coming to Kings county, he bought thirty-four acres north- 
west of Hanford, a part of which was unimproved, and now has seven 
acres in vineyard and twenty-five acres in peaches and apricots. His 
projierty is improved with a good house and adequate outbuildings 
which he erected after it came into his possession. He was one of the 
organizers of the Last Chance Ditch Company and helped to construct 
its improvements, and he was identified also, in the period 187-4-1881, 
with the promotion of the People's Ditch and the Lower Kings River 
Ditch. 

In 18(i6 ]\Ir. Cody married Mary M. Gray and they have had five 
children: Thorley G., Harvey P., Rinney, deceased, Andrew Milo and 
Terrill, deceased. It is probable that no part of his life will always 
be as fresh in Mr. Cody's memory as that part of it which he passed 
in Confederate prisons. He considers himself fortunate in having 
come out of that experience alive. "Clara Barton told me," he says, 
"that she put up thirteen thousand gravestones at Andersonville and 
one stone for the graves of two thousand unnamed soldiers. There 
were seven thousand deaths in Florence prison and there is no record 
of those who died in the other prisons that I was in." 



ALEXANDER CROOK 

A pioneer and a son of a pioneer, the career of Alexander Crook 
has been a most active one in this vicinity. He was born in Harrison 
county, Ind., in 18.38, a son of Wiley Crook, and came to California 
when he was nineteen years old. He and his brother made the long- 
journey by way of the Isthmus of Panama and settled in Sonoma 
county, reniaining in the valley five years. Subsequently they lived 
for a time in Nevada, and in the interval between their departure from 
that territory and the year 1874 they lived in various places east and 
west. In the year just mentioned they located in Tulare county, where 
the land had just been surveyed by the government, and took wp one 
hundred and sixty acres. Mr. Crook is now the owner of six hundred 
and forty acres on which he is farming and raising cattle and some 
fruit with a degree of success that makes him consj^icuous among 
farmers of his vicinity. 

In 1873 Mr. Crook married Elizabeth Kipp, a native of Indiana, 
and they had five children, all of whom are natives of California. 
Catlierine married Holmes Batcheler. Blanch is the wife of Tiert 



538 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Smith. Ethel is Mrs. Frank Gill. Arthur B. and Fred A. are mem- 
bers of their parents' household. The family is well-known and popu- 
lar in the county and Mr. Crook has demonstrated his deep interest in 
public affairs by assisting movements for the general good. In asso- 
ciation with George Dillon he promoted the organization of the first 
school near his home, was instrumental in having the first school house 
built there, and for a time he ably filled the office of school director. 

His father, Wiley Crook, was born in Indiana and came to Cali- 
fornia in 1849, eight years before the settlement here of his two sons, 
making the journey on board an old English brig which was forty days 
at sea without a landing. He began here with about one hundred dol- 
lars in cash, with a part of which he secured a few cattle, and pros- 
pered fairly well until 1885, when he died, leaving his possessions to 
his two sons. 



LYMAN D. FARMER 

The youngest man who ever held the office of sheriff in California 
is L^-man D. Farmer of Kings county. It should be a matter of pride 
to Cahforuians that he is a native of the state and doubly so to the 
people of Kings county that he was born within its borders, nine miles 
northeast of Hanford. He made his advent in this world Novemljer 7, 
1885, a sou of George and Gertrude D. (Ruggles) Farmer, natives res- 
pectively of Iowa and California. George Farmer came to California 
in 1875 and located on a farm near Cross Creek Switch, in Kings 
county, where he still lives and of whom a sketch will he found on 
another page in this work. His wife was a daughter of L. B. Ruggles, 
a native of Michigan, who came around Cape Horn to California in 
pioneer days, returned east by way of the Isthmus of Panama and 
brought his wife back to this state. After mining for awhile, he 
farmed and worked at lumbering at Woodland, Yolo county, until he 
took up his residence in Tulare county. In 1876 he pre-empted land 
seven miles southwest of Traver, on which he engaged in farming and 
to which he eventually acquired title. With the aid of his sons he 
constructed the Settlers' Irrigation ditch in that part of the county. 
After a life of usefulness he passed away in 1896, and Mrs. Farmer is 
his only surviving child. Of Mr. and Mrs. Farmer's ten children, 
eight are living: Leta D. is the wife of Dr. L. C. Cothran; Milton T. 
is a graduate of U. of C. and now attorney for the State Superinten- 
dent of Banks with law offices in Oakland; the others are Lyman D., 
Ethel R., Theodore P., Paul L., Clarence W. and Lucile B. 

Lyman D. Farmer acquired his primary education in the public 
schools and was a student one vear at the Universitv of California. 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 539 

He helped his father on the home i*anch until 1909, when he was ap- 
pointed deputy sheriff under Sheriff W. V. Buckner. He was elected 
sheriff on the Republican ticket in 1910, when he was twenty-five years 
of age, and is filling the office with ability and fidelity that would do 
credit to a man twice his years. 

Fraternally Sheriff Farmer affiliates with the Sons of Veterans; 
the Native Sons of the Golden West ; is a Royal Arch Mason ; a mem- 
ber of the Eastern Star, Odd Fellows, Woodmen of the World and 
the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks of Hanford. Popular as he is 
in these orders, he is held in no higher esteem than by the citizens 
generally. In 1911 he married Miss Ethel Rhoads, a native of Cali- 
fornia, a granddaughter of Daniel Rhoads, a pioneer of California. 
Her father, J. W. Rhoads, who also was born in this state, came to San 
Joaquin Valley among the early settlers and passed away in Tulare 
county and is buried at Hanford. 



HENRY C. HORSMAN 

Of Kentuckians who have become prominent in Tulare county, 
Henry C. Horsman of Dinuba is, perhaps, as highly regarded as any. 
He was born in Daviess county, in that grand old state, in 1844. His 
father was a native of Virginia and his mother was a Kentuckian by 
birth and ancestry. When he was five years old, which was in 1849, 
his family removed to Illinois, and thereafter he did not leave that 
state until in 1861, after he had enlisted in Company H, Twenty-sixth 
Regiment Illinois Volunteer Infantry. By re-enlistment he served 
four years and was finally discharged at Louisville, Ky., and given 
papers testifying to his bravery and fidelity as a soldier. It is some- 
what remarkable that he participated in twenty-seven hard-fought 
engagements without receiving a wound, and it is to his credit that he 
enlisted as a private and rose to be a corporal. 

It was not until 1884 that Mr. Horsman came to California. He 
homesteaded land in Tulare county and the woman who later became 
his wife also acquired government land. All of this he sold when he 
removed to his present homestead near Dinuba, where he raised grain 
a number of years, but eventually turned his attention to fruit and 
vines. For his ranch, which is one of the most beautiful in this 
vicinity, he \m\(\ $47 an acre ten years ago, and today it could not be 
bought for $500 an acre. 

The lady who was the wife of Mr. Horsman 's youth was Nancy 
E. Smith, a native of Illinois, who came with him to California in 
1884 and died in the fall of that year. In 1886 he married Lydia E. 
Hoskins, a native of Oregon, who had come to California. Mr. Hors- 



540 TULARE AND KIXCxS COUNTIES 

man is a patriotic citizen, who lias iu a pnblic-spirited way done mueli 
for the commnnity and lias been called to some public offices, which 
he has filled with ability and credit. All who know him deem him a 
Christian gentleman, having at heart the welfare of mankind, and 
there are not a few who have felt his kindly influence for good and his 
generous helpfulness. 

By his first wife Mr. Horsman had one child, Clarence E. Hors- 
man, who is identified with the educational profession of Tulare county 
as a public school teacher, having- followed this profession for about 
twenty years. He was principal of the Orosi grammar school six 
years and has been principal of the Dinuba grammar school four 
years. He is at present in charge of the piiblic school at Venice in 
Tulare county. Mrs. Horsman is a member of the local W. C. T. U. 
and has given much active attention to the upbiiilding of that society. 
She was president of the local organization for four years, then be- 
came president of the Tulare and Kings county W. C. T. U., which 
IDOsition she held with great ability. Mrs. Horsman is a daughter of 
the Golden West. She was born in Douglas County, Oregon, and 
came with her parents, William and Peninah (Hobson) Hoskins, to 
California in 1867, when she was thirteen years of age, and settled in 
Tulare countv in 1873. 



F. M. PARRISH 

This efficient city trustee of Hanford, Kings county, Cal., was 
born at Soquel, Santa Cruz county, Cal., September 10, 1856, a son 
of Joshua and Narcissa (Dell) Parrish, natives of Ohio. The father 
crossed the plains with mule teams in 1849, mined and later hauled 
freight to the mines till 1851, when he settled at Santa Cruz, Cal., 
and farmed land which is now within the boundaries of that city. 
After a time he rented land at Soquel, then took over a Spanish grant 
and for many yeai's farmed the land involved in it. He died at Soquel 
in 1898, and his wife survived him till in May, 1911. Their children 
were all born and raised in Santa Cniz county. Mary, the wife of 
Charles Spreckelsen of Soquel, died in December, 1911. F. M. is the 
immediate subject of this notice. Winfield S. lives on a ranch four 
miles west of Hanford. Benjamin F. was next in order of birth. Anna 
is the wife of A. J. Wyman of Soquel. 

On the second of November, 1878, F. M. Parrish moved from 
Santa Cruz county to Hanford. During his first year in Kings county 
he worked for wages. Tn the second year he put in a crop of wheat, 
five miles west of Hanford, and he has been ranching in the county 
ever since. For ten years he farmed a (piarter-section north of Han- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 541 

ford, raising wheat, alfalfa and grapes. In 18!)0 lie sold his land and 
for a decade thereafter lived on a small place which he bought near 
Grangeville. He still owns the last mentioned homestead of eighty 
acres, which has twenty acres of peaches, thirty of grapes and thirty 
of alfalfa. The familj^ have lived in Hanford since 1901. 

At Hanford Mr. Parrish has proven himself to be a public-spirited 
citizen with the interest of the community at heart. In the spring of 
1910 he was elected a city trustee for a four-year term. He had been 
previously for many years a school trustee at Grangeville. He 
affiliates with the Woodmen of the World, and is a director in the 
Hanford Savings Bank, the Last Chance Ditch Company and the Lone 
Oak Canal Company. In 1880 he married Miss Martha Robinson and 
the}' have four children: Maud is the wife of Royal L. Waltz of 
Armona ; May married R. 0. Deacon of Lemoore ; Emma is Mrs. H. A, 
Thedieck of Fresno; Ada is a member of her parents' household, and 
is a student at the Southern California Universitv. 



ARTHUR W. MATHEWSON 

In Wheelock, Caledonia county, Vt., Arthur W. Mathewson was 
born November 14, 1834, a son of Cliarles Mathewson, a native of 
Rhode Island and a descendant of English ancestors who early settled 
there. He married Sarah Williams, also of Rhode Island birth, a 
direct descendant of Roger Williams and a relative of Governor 
S]irague of that state, with whom members of her family were largely 
interested in cotton manufacture. Arthur W. Mathewson, the sixth in 
a family of ten children, was brought up to farm work by his father 
and educated in public schools and at an academy at Linden, ^''t. Self- 
supporting from the time he became sixteen years old, he worked in 
a tannery about two years, then on his father's fai'm three years, and 
in 1856 came to California by way of Cape Horn. For two years after 
his arrival here he worked in the mines and in 1858 he was in Tulare 
county a short time, then bought laud at San Jose, which he oi^erated 
until 1864, when it passed from his jiossession because of a previous 
Spanish claim. Returning to Tulare county in the year last mentioned 
he engaged in herding sheep and in time acquired four thousand head. 
From time to time he bought and sold ranch property and, August 17, 
1896, when he died, he owned a ranch near Farmersville, Tulare 
county. He did much to jiromote irrigation and was for many years 
president of the People's Consolidated Ditch Company. Fraternally 
he affiliated with the Farmers Alliance and with the Independent 
Order of Odd Fellows. In his politics he was Republican. 

In 1866 Mr. Mathewson married Miss Lucinda Tinkham, a Jiative 



542 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

of Iowa and a daughter of Nathaniel Tinkham, who was from Ver- 
mont. They had eight children of whom five are living: Mrs. Pearl 
Ogden, Levi, Mrs. Edith M. Mosier, Earl and James A. 

October 1, 1870, Levi Mathewson was born near Visalia, Tulare 
county, where he was reared and educated. He began his active life 
by helping his father on the ranch, and in 1891 bought forty acres near 
Visalia, which he devotes to tlie cultivation of prunes and alfalfa and 
to the breeding of hogs, and on which he formerly had a dairy of 
twenty-five cows. He set out ten acres to prunes and has otherwise 
improved the i)ro]ierty. In 1911 he sold six tons of dried prunes 
from two hundred and fifty trees and he has no difficulty in gathering 
from five to six crops of alfalfa each season. His ranch, one of the 
oldest in the valley, has been farmed for more than half a century and 
was formerly known as the old Judd place. Mr. Mathewson remem- 
bers the old slab house that was built on it by Mr. Judd some time 
before 1860. 

In 1897 Mr. Mathewson married Margaret J. Bacon, a native of 
California, whose father, John Bacon, settled early in Tulare county. 
Mr. and Mrs. Mathewson have two children, Guy and Madeline. 
Socially Mr. Mathewson affiliates with the Native Sons of the Golden 
West and with the Woodmen of the World. He is interested in every- 
thing that pertains to the development of the county and responds 
generously to all demands for public-spirited promotion of the com- 
munity. 



A. FEANK SMITH 

An efficient member of the board of super\'isors of Kings county, 
Cal., whose name heads this article, was born in San Jose, Cal., 
December 6, 1866, a son of Buck and Fannie (Heisley) Smith, natives 
respectively of Iowa and Pennsylvania. Buck Smith came to Cali- 
fornia in 1859 and engaged in stock-raising in Santa Clara county. 
Later he operated at the New Idra mines in San Behito county and 
in 1872 again went into stock-raising. In 1880 he transferred his 
farming and stockraising business to a point near Hanford and in 
1891 he bought land at Lindsay, Tulare county, known as Lindsay 
Heights, on which he has lived to the present time. 

Wheat-raising at Hanford first engaged the attention of A. Frank 
Smith, though later he took up contracting and building and erected 
many cottages and residences in and around that citj". In 1906 he 
engaged in the bee business and has become one of the extensive 
apiarists in his part of the state, selliug about a carload of honey 
annually. He was elected supervisor in 1906 and re-elected in 1910, 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 543 

elected a third time in 1912, and is now serving in that office. Since he 
entered upon his duties the following undertakings have been success- 
fully carried out: Annexation of a part of Fresno county to Kings 
county; purchase of the southwest portion of the plat to enlarge the 
court house grounds; purchase of the fairground property of fifty- 
three acres half a mile west of Hanford, for the site of the new county 
hospital; building of the county hospital in 1910 at a cost of $30,000; 
and the selling of the old cotmty hospital site and the purchase of an 
addition to the court house groxmds in 1911. Mr. Smith is secretary 
of Hanford Lodge No. 264, I. 0. 0. F., and one of the managers of 
Hanford Lodge No. 163, W. 0. W. 

In 1886 Mr. Smith married Miss Cornelia Vermason, a native of 
California, and they have a daughter named Veda. 



BENJAMIN V. SHARP 

This prominent citizen of Kings county, Cal., whose office is in 
the court house at Hanford, is the present efficient horticultural com- 
missioner of that division of the state. Benjamin V. Sharp, a native 
of Schenectady county, N. Y., was born April 29, 1839. There he grew 
to maturity and gained his primary education. In 1858, when he was 
nineteen years old, he went to McLean county, 111., and located not far 
from Bloomington. He began his higher education in the Illinois 
Wesleyan LTniversity. It was interrupted, however, in 1861 by Presi- 
dent Lincoln's call to arms. Young Sharp enlisted in Company K, 
Second Illinois Cavalry, but was discharged on account of ill health 
after a year's strenuous service. Returning to his home in Illinois he 
•resumed his college course and was duly graduated. 

After leaving college he was for two years superintendent of a 
soldiers orphans' home at Bloomington. Then he was for some time 
in the hotel business in that city. Later he farmed until 1900, when he 
settled in Kings county, Cal. He bought one hundred and twenty 
acres of land a mile and a half south of Hanford. It was mostly in 
fruit, but some of the trees have since been removed. He made his 
home on the jn-operty until 1905, when he rented it ; in 1906 he sold it, 
and since that time he has lived in Hanford. In 1896 he was appointed 
by the Board of Supervisors horticultural commissioner for Kings 
county, an office which he filled with great ability and wholly to the 
satisfaction of the public until in 1904, when he resigned it. He was 
reappointed in 1906 and has served continuously ever since. As a 
citizen he is iniblic-spirited and helpful to a remarkable degree, and so 
great is his faith in Hanford that he has invested heavily in its real 
estate. Fraternallv he affiliates with the Masonic order. 



544 TULARE AXD KINGS COUNTIES 

In September, 1864, Mr. Sharp married .Elizabeth A. Hazel, a 
native of Ohio, but then a resident of Illinois. They have two sous, 
James A. Sharp of Chicago and Burns B. Sharp, a contractor well 
known in Hanford, which is the center of his business operations. 



OSCAR TROUT GRISWOLD 

In the Buckeye State Oscar Trout Griswold was born December 
7, 1842, a son of Edward and Helen M. (Trout) Griswold. He is a 
descendant of Edward Griswold, who witli his brother Matthew came 
over from England in 1(539 and settled in Massachusetts, and is tenth 
in line of descent from that pioneer. Solomon Griswold, his grand- 
father, went from New England to western New York and lived there 
until 1831, when he went to Fort Dearborn, now Chicago, whence he re- 
turned to Ohio. Later he visited Wisconsin and still later settled 
in Iowa, where he died, aged ninety years, having been all his life a 
farmer. Edward Griswold, father of Oscar T., settled in Iowa in 1851. 
He had become acquainted with that country as early as 1837, when he 
was a member of an exploring party which explored the Wisconsin 
river and the vast forests to the westward. He was long a prominent 
figure in the middle west and was an early and to his death an ardent 
abolitionist. Oscar T. when only twelve years old, remembers John 
Brown as a visitor at his father's house and he later saw Brown on 
the road to Harper's Ferry. Edward Griswold died when Oscar T. 
was but fourteen years old. He had two other sons, who have passed 
away. 

Wlien his parents took him from Ohio to Iowa, in 1851, Oscar 
Trout Griswold was about eight years old. He was reared on a farm 
and after he was nineteen was a farmer and a grower and shipper of 
stock until 1888, when he came to Hanford. He had made a trip to 
California two years before, riding through the Sacramento and San 
Joaquin valleys on a mule-cart, looking for a location. When he 
brought his family west, leasing his eastern property, he l)Ought one 
hundred acres of land east of Hanford which he sold in order to buy, 
in 1893, eighty acres, including water, three miles north of Hanford, at 
$40 an acre. This laud, which is now worth $400 an acre, his sons 
have set out to fruit, and two of them reside on the place. In 1894 Mr. 
Griswold bought forty acres near this property on which he has since 
made his home, though he has done no active farming since he came to 
California. His sons S. P., Oscar E. and A. E. Griswold during 1911 
produced thirty-four tons of honey and fifteen hundred pounds of 
beeswax from seven hundred and fiftv stands of bees. Thev have been 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 545 

in the bee business more than twenty years and are members of the 
California State Bee Keepers Association. 

The oil industry has long had strong claims on Mr. Griswold's 
attention. He was one of the organizers of the Baby King Oil Com- 
pany, and is a stockholder in the St. Lawrence Oil Company. Four 
hundred and eighty acres of land in section eleven, township twenty- 
three, range sixteen. Kings county, is owned by the Baby King Oil 
Company in which he is the largest stockholder. He is serving his 
fourth term as director of the People's Ditch Company and has been 
for twelve years a director of the First National Bank of Hanford. 

In 1867 Mr. Griswold married Miss Lucretia Thompson, a native 
of Ohio, six of whose nine children are living: Elmer B., James C, 
Alpheus E., Oscar E., S. Perry and May. The latter is the wife of 
George W. Anderson of Fruitville, Oakland, Cal. Elmer B. is living 
at Modesto and the other sons live in the vicinity of Hanford. 



0. E. GIBBONS 

The prominent citizen of Piano whose name is well known 
throughout Tulare county, Cal., as an enthusiastic promoter of the 
development and prospei'ity of Central California and as a man whose 
pulilic spirit is always equal to any demands that may be made upon 
it, 0. E. Gibbons is a native of Lake county, 111., born Aiigust 2, 1850. 
He lived in Texas from the time he was about four years old until he 
was nearly ten. Then his father started with his family to California, 
arriving at Piano Sejitember 2, 1861. There the boy was educated and 
has lived continuously to the present time except for such brief ab- 
sences as the developments of life often demand. His father. Deeming 
Gibbons, took up a homestead which was number nine of its series, a 
fact which in itself would suggest how sparsely the country was settled 
at that time. He planted a few trees on the place and raised a small 
crop of grain in 1863, and it is said that he was the first man in Tulare 
county to set out orange trees and sell oranges. He had half an acre 
of seedlings and sold the first oranges from them at twenty-five cents 
each. 

O. E. Gibbons was brought up on the far-m and carefully in- 
structed in the details of agriculture and horticulture by his father. 
The father died January 4, 1884, his wife April 1, 1880. At this time 
Mr. Gil)bons is the jtropi'ietor of the onl.v general merchandise store at 
Piano; he is the local i)Ostmaster and has been justice of the |)eace and 
served as a member of the school board. Fraternally he affiliates with 
the Knights of Pythias. He is a man of enterprise and of lieliiful dis- 

30 



546 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

position, who while wiimina,- success for himself has not forgotten liis 
obligations to the community. 

In 1874 Mr. Gibbous married Miss Fannie E. Thomson, a native 
of Ohio, and they Jiave tliree children: Clara E. married M. F. Single- 
ton; Hiram E. married Nellie Monroe; and Pauline is living with her 
parents aud acquiring an education in the high school at Porterville. 



AYILLIAM H. BLAIN 

More than a half century in the hi ml where he came as a pioneer 
brought to the late William H. Blain well deserved rewards. Cali- 
fornia has proven herself a generous mother to her adopted children, 
and Mr. Blain was loyal to her. He was a Missourian, born in Pike 
coimty, twelve miles from Bowling Green, January 3, 1839, son of W. 
W. and Ann (Turner) Blain. The father, a cooper, a mason and a 
brickniaker, built and conducted the Blain Hotel, at Bowling Green. 
In 1844 he built the Pike county court house. There he lived and kept 
tavern till the end of his days; his wife died at Hannibal, Mo. Of their 
nine children, six are living. Two came to this state. The oldest of 
the girls emigrated thitlier with her brother and married Hugh Jones, 
a retired pioneer of 1849, and died at Gilroy. 

The second born of his father's family, William H. Blain, was 
brought up at Bowling Green, attending the public scliools and, under 
his father's instruction, obtaining a knowledge of stock-raising. 
His first triii to the coast, in the year 1854, was made with a bunch 
of cattle. He was but fifteen at the time, a mere boy, but observant 
and receptive for one of his age, and he stood guard at night like the 
most seasoned plainsman in his party and shrank from no other duty 
that came to him. He left Missouri April 20, reaching Santa Cruz in 
October, after having made the trip by way of Sublett's Cut-off, thence 
down the Humboldt, through the Tliousand Sj^rings valley to 
Walker's, thence to Tuolumne county, a route on which there would be 
no lack of feed for the cattle. From October until December Mr. 
Blain stopped at a point near Santa Clara; then he went to Monterey 
county, now San Benito, where he managed a stock ranch a year. 
Going back to Santa Clara, he farmer there on shares till 1857, then 
engaged in hauling lumber in Tuolumne county, whence, eventually, 
he went to Monterey county, to raise cattle on shares in Pacheco Pass. 
He sold out there early in 1863, and in June drove to Visalia, Tulare 
county, and, making headquarters there, teamed to the mountains till 
the spring of 1865. The first winter of this period he spent at Wilcox 
canyon. From 1865 to 1869 he was in the sheep business, making 
money, and tlien he opened a butcher shop at White Pine, Nev., whence 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 547 

he went later to Eureka, continuing in the same business. By 1873 he 
had mastered the butcher trade so that he had no thought of changing 
his occupation, and it was as a butcher that he then went back to 
Visalia, where he established a market, which he conducted success- 
fully many years, in conjunction with a cattle biisiness so large that he 
at one time owned six hundred head. He acquired an improved cattle 
ranch of thirteen hundred and twentj" acres near Monson, Tulare 
county; three hundred and fifty acres northeast of Visalia; five thou- 
sand acres in the foothills of Tulare coimtv; a hundred and sixty acres 
east of Visalia ; and a handsome home in that city. For a time he was 
in the dairy business, but eventually he gave attention only to stock- 
raising. 

In Santa Cruz, Mr. Blain married Sarah Collier. Their daughter, 
Mrs. Laura Zimmerman. lives at Tiburou, Cal., and their son, William, 
is a citizen of Bakersfield. His second marriage was to Julia Strube, 
a native of Texas, whom he wedded at Visalia. Mrs. Blain, who 
crossed the plains from her old home in 1861, has had four children : 
Frank L., who became his father's partner; George William, who is 
dead; Gladys and Marguerite. Mr. Blain was a stockholder in the 
First National Bank of Visalia, and in various ways manifested his 
solicitude for the town and its people. He was a member of the Inde- 
pendent Order of Good Templars, in which he passed all chairs of 
the subordinate lodge, and of the Ancient Order of United Workmen. 
In the promotion and development of the San Joaquin Valley Cattle 
Growers Association he was helpfully active. His religious affiliations, 
as are those of his family, were with the Presbyterian church. He 
passed away November 1, 1908. 



JOHN AUGUST LEEBON 

The productive ranch of John August Leebon is located three 
miles east of Visalia. Tulare county, Cal., on East Mineral King ave- 
nue. Mr. Leebon, who is one of the most progressive and successful 
ranchmen of this district, was born in Sweden, May 16, 1861. He grew 
to manhood there and was edu<'ated in the common school near the 
home of his childhood and youth. In 1881 he came to the United States 
and made his way west as far as Minneapolis. Minn. In order to ac- 
quire necessary English education, he went to school there a year, 
then was employed as a laborer on a Minnesota farm. In 1886 he came 
to California and found employment in an orchard at San Jose. Eigh- 
teen months later he went to Tacoma, Wash., and worked in a saw- 
mill, where he received an accidental injury which kept him in a 
hospital for a long time. He came back to San Jose in 1889 and 



548 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

from then until 1897 was profitably engaged in the teaming busi- 
ness. Then he came to Tulare county and leased one hundred and 
eighteen acres of land, not far from Visalia, from the First National 
Bank of San Jose. In 1901 he was able to buy this property, the bulk 
of which was then planted to fruit, eighty acres in peaches, twenty in 
prunes, six in nectarines, the remainder devoted to gi'ain and pasture. 
He now has a dairj' of eight.v cows and keeps an average of one hun- 
dred and sixty hogs, and one hundred acres of his land is under alfalfa. 
An enterprising and public spirited citizen, Mr. Leebon commands 
the esteem of all who know him. He is a stockholder in the Co-operative 
Creamery company of Visalia and is from time to time identified, 
directly or indirectly, with other important local interests. Politically 
he is Republican, and though he is without ambition for political prefer- 
ment he accepted the office of school director and was made secretary 
of his district board of education. He was one of the founders of the 
Swedish Mission church of San Jose, of which he was a constituent 
member. He donated the land for the Mineral King chapel and helped 
build it, and is a member of the board of trustees. Mr. Leebon was 
married in San Jose to Annie Anderson, of Swedish birth, who died 
at their home in Visalia, leaving two sons, Oscar William and Carl 
Edward Leebon. 



STEPHEN B. HICKS 

The best authority in Kings county on irrigation ditches is 
Stephen B. Hicks of Planford. How he came to be such an authority 
will be of interest in this connection. To liegin with some pertinent 
biographical data, it may be said that he was born in Green county, 
Tenn., May 1, 1842, three years later his family moved to Schuyler 
county. Mo., and still later they weut to Wayne county, Iowa, where 
he passed eight years of his life. In 1882 he came direct to Hanford, 
where he has since made his home. Soon after his arrival he bought 
one hundred and sixty acres of land four miles southwest of the town, 
where he raised wheat and alfalfa four years. He sold that and 
bought one hundred and sixty acres three miles east of Hanford. 
Later he bought one hundred and sixty acres eight miles northeast of 
Hanford. On these places he farmed many years, raising alfalfa and 
fine horses and cattle and other stock. In 1891 he went into the mer- 
cantile business at Hanford. After seven years of success he sold 
his store and goods and later he sold his ranch northeast of the city; 
but he still owns his quarter section to the east, which is rented for 
dairy purjsoses. 

Since 1888 Mr. Hicks has been interested in irrigation by ditches 
and, as stated before, is conceded to be better informed than any other 



TULABE AND KINGS COUNTIES 549 

mail ill the county oil water systems. The Settlerts' ditch was started 
in 1874 and Mr. Hicks was successively director, president and secre- 
tary of the com])auy. In the early '90s, under authority of a vote by 
the stockholders, he as secretary sold the franchise to the Tulare 
Irrigation Company, of Tulare county, and from the proceeds of that 
sale the old company Ijought somewhat more than a fourth interest in 
the People's Ditch Company of Kings county, wliich takes its water 
from Kings river; soon after the latter transaction Mr. Hicks was 
elected a director of the People's Ditch Company and as such served 
several years. In the sequence of events he was elected president of 
the company, which place he filled until January 1, 1909, when he re- 
signed. During his service as president the first weir at the head 
of the ditch was built and stood seven years, and he was chairman 
of a committee of three to effect a compromise with the Fresno Canal 
Company in the matter of water rights and a member of a committee 
of three appointed to arrange for a survey to locate reservoir sites in 
the mountains. 

One of the busiest men in the county, Mr. Hicks has yet found time 
to yield to his inclination to do public service on behalf of his fellow 
citizens. He was four years a city trustee of Hanford and his two 
years' service as chairman of the board made him the third mayor 
of the city. In the erection and formation of Kings county in 1893, 
Mr. Hicks was active and influential. Fraternally he affiliates with 
Hanford lodge, F. & A. M., and with the Royal Arch chapter of that 
order. He has been a Master Mason for over twenty years and long 
been treasurer of the local lodge and is identitied also with the Eastern 
Star chapter. It is a matter of local and Masonic history that he had 
charge of the erection of the Masonic temple in Hanford. In 1866 he 
married Margaret Green, a native of Indiana, who is also a member of 
the order of the Eastern Star. They have three children : Alice is the 
wife of J. L. Payton, a rancher living east of Hanford, and has six 
children. Hannah E. married J. W. Payton, a merchant at Hanford, 
and they have two children. Mollie is Mrs. J. J. Adams and her hus- 
band is a dairv rancher near Dinuba. 



HENRY COLPIEN 

In his career, which on tlie whole has been A'ery successful since 
he came to America in 189.'1, Henry Colpien of Enterprise colony, Tu- 
lare county, Cal., has demonstrated the advantages of following a life 
of integrity, industry and perseverance. He was born in Holstein, 
Germany, March 6, 1874, and there grew to manhood and was educated 
in the public schools. He learned farming there also, according to 
methods in vogue. In 1893 he determined to come to America, and 



550 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

being without funds, he borrowed $135 from a friend with which to 
pay his passage. He was not very provident on the voyage, and when 
he arrived in California, which was his objective part of the country, 
his entire cash capital was ten cents and no more. His first work in 
the United States was in Tulare county, herding sheep, which he says 
he ran all over the county and into the mountains. He was thus em- 
ployed for nineteen mouths, and from 1895 to 1899 he did hard ranch 
work for wages. Up to this time he had spent his earnings as fast as 
he received them, but he now began to see the error of his financial 
ways and decided that if he were to save his money he must have some 
definite use for it and some ambition to gratify. Accordingly, in the 
fall of 1899, lie rented two hundred and twenty-seven acres northwest 
of Tulare City, which for two years he operated on shares, devoting 
his attention ])riucipa]ly to wheat and stock. Accumulating money he 
wisely laid it by for future use and soon was able to buy forty acres 
of laud near where he had been farming. He cleared and improved 
it and built on it a good house and other necessary buildings. The 
land cost him thirty dollars an acre and soon was yielding him a splen- 
did profit in alfalfa. By 1907 land values in his vicinity had materially 
increased and he bought another forty-acre tract, paying sixty dollars 
an acre ; in 1909 he bought forty acres more, under some improvement, 
and had to pay for it $125 an acre. At this time he owns, clear of all 
debts, one hundred and twenty acres of improved land in one piece, 
all of wliich he acquired iu a comparatively brief period of eleven 
years. Twelve acres of his land is in Egyptian corn and fifty-five 
acres are producing fifteen sacks of wheat to the acre. He raises fine 
horses, has a dairy of twelve cows, and usually keeps about one hun- 
dred and fifty head of hogs. In 1912 Mr. Colpieu added to his holdings 
by buying another forty acres, for which he paid $7,500. 

In 1901 Mr. Colpien married Ollie M. Johnson, a native of Indiana, 
and they have children named Herman J., Raymond C. and Heubert H. 
Socially he affiliates with Tulare City lodge No. 306, Independent Order 
of Odd Fellows, and he is also a member of an encampment of that 
order. 



JULIUS BURGAMASTEE 

Among the first land purchasers iu his part of Tulare county was 
Julius Burgamaster, who was a native of Missouri, and came with his 
family to California in 1901, buying a tract of fifteen acres of land 
from Dudley Brothers and locating permanently in Tulare county. 
His wife was Margaret Tiedemann, also a native of Missouri, and 
■they both were descended from German ancestry. Upon coming to 
California in 1901, thev settled in Farmersville. then came to the 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 551 

present location of tlie homestead, where Mr. Burgamaster purchased 
fifteen acres of land and developed and improved it, ever after making 
it his home, until his death, which took place in Tulare county in 1911. 
Three children were horn to this coui)]e, of whom two survive, Otto 
and Mattie. In politics Julius Burgamaster was a Democrat and was 
devoted heart and soul to the princijiles of his party, all of which he 
has handed down to his son, who is following closely in his footsteps. 
As a man of enterprise and public spirit he many times demonstrated 
his high citizenshi)). Believing that his interests could l)e advanced 
only with those of the connnuuity at large, he was always generous in 
his help to movements for the general benefit. 

Otto Burgamaster, son of Julius, who since his father's death 
has conducted the si^lendid ranch, was born in Missouri, August 29, 
1885. Educated in the public schools there, he was taught the funda- 
mentals of farming and while yet young was afforded much ]iractical 
experience as a tiller of the soil. Six acres of the ranch are in vine- 
yard, producing Muscat and Thompson grapes, and during 1911, which 
was an unusually dry year, the vines produced four tons of grapes. 
Two acres are in orchard and the ranch is in a high state of cultivation, 
and ranks among the most productive in the county. 



HAERY A. CLARK 

The esteemed citizen of Tulare county, Cal., Harry A. Clark, has 
achieved good results as farmer, fruit culturist, dairyman and stock- 
raiser and is known through his interest in the Tulare Canning com- 
pany and his activities as a member of the finance committee of the 
Dairymen's Co-operative Creamery company. From time to time he 
has been identified with other important interests in Tulare and the 
county at large, and in many ways he has demonstrated that he pos- 
sesses a public spirit that may be safely relied on whenever its exer- 
cise is demanded. 

It was in Woodson county, Kans., that Mr. Clark was lioru, July 
30, 1872. He came to California in 1892, and worked for wages at 
and near Tulare during the ensuing three years, and then went into 
wheat growing, nine miles soutli of that city. His operations soon 
became so extensive that they involved the cultivation of six hundred 
and forty acres of laud, which he farmed till in 1904, when lie l)ought 
his present home ranch of seventy-one acres, five miles north of Tu- 
lare, and under his able management and scientific cultivation this 
property has been greatly improved. He has set out twenty-five acres 
to peaches and fifteen are in alfalfa. He has a small dairy, and is 
setting oul at the present time fifteen acres to ])runes. He has one 
hundred head of Jerseys, large Durocs. In 1910 he planted to Egyji- 



552 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

tian corn eighteen acres between rows of peach trees, and the crop 
yielded thirty and one-half sacks to the acre, in all amounting to 
four hundred and thirty-nine sacks, truly a record achievement. He 
planted also black-eye beans between the trees and they produced, 
in 1911, eighteen sacks to the acre. Fine blooded brood mares are 
among his choicest possessions and he raises each year two or three 
colts bred to a Percheron stallion. He makes somewhat of a specialty 
also of mules. One of his colts recently was sold for $250. 

On December 9, 1908, Mr. Clark married Miss Iris Hemphill, a 
native of Missouri, and they have children, Hazel G. and Jessie E. 



B. L. BAENEY 

At Gouverneur, St. Lawrence county, X. Y., B. L. Barney was 
born, March 24, 1849. Educated in the public schools and at the 
Gouverneur Wesleyan seminary, he was early interested in merchan- 
dising, farming and the tannery business in St. Lawrence and Jeffer- 
son coimties, N. Y., until 1891, when he settled at Hanford. For a 
time he engaged in ranching and later he went into the grocery 
trade at Hanford, under the firm name of Foster, Barney & Felton. 
He sold his interest in the liusiness to Mr. Foster and with Mr. 
Birklieck as a ])artner organized a new enterprise under the style 
of Barney & Birkbeck. Later he became sole proprietor and after 
a time the firm became known as Barney, Kelly & Widner, and under 
the last name a store was conducted at Grange^nlle. Eventually Mr. 
Kelly bought Mr. Barney's interest at Hanford and Mr. Barney be- 
came sole proprietor of the Grangeville store and conducted it until 
he sold it to J. C. Stewart, in order to give attention to his ranch 
interests. 

While Mr. Barney was interested in the grocery trade he engaged 
in the raisin and dry fruit packing biisiness as head of the firm of 
Barney & Cameron, which was succeeded by the B. L. Barney com- 
pany, of which Mr. Barney was proprietor until he retired from that 
branch of business. He has purchased a ranch of one hundred and 
sixty acres, three miles and a half east of Hanford, which is given 
to the production of fruit and vines, cattle, horses and hogs, and is 
now conducted by his son, Fred M. Barney. 

One of the most active advocates of the formation of Kings 
county in 1892 was Mr. Barney. He was elected as a Republican to 
the office of supervisor, in which he served four years, during which 
time the jiresent courthouse and jail were built. He was chairman 
of the building committee and was active in the superintendeucy of 
the work. He lias lieeu a member of the Hanford Chamlier of Com- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 553 

merce and of commercial bodies having for their object the promo- 
tion of the interests of the county. In 1908 he was elected a member 
of the board of trustees of the City of Hanford and in 1909 was made 
chairman of that body, which office he filled one term. He is junior 
warden in the Episcopal church of Hanford and a member of the 
local lodge of Knights of Pythias. 

In 1873, Mr. Barney married Mary E. Herring, a native of New 
York state, and they have two children, Anna Louise and Fred M. 
Anna Louise Barney was graduated with honors from the gram- 
mar and high schools at Hanford and from the University of Cali- 
fornia, and during the last four years has been a teacher of English 
in the Hanford high school. Fred M. Barney is operating the ranch 
near town. 



JOHN W. BAXLEY 

One of the most successful of the citizens of Tulare county who 
have come within its borders in recent years is John W. Baxley, a 
native of Berkeley county, W. Va., born February 8, 1852. Mr. 
Baxley was brought up and educated and became acquainted with 
the details of practical farming in his native state, where he suc- 
cessfully raised wheat, corn, red clover, tobacco and other crops 
till 1882, when he removed to Allen county, Kans. There he farmed 
many years, acquiring eight hundred acres and giving his attention 
principally to wheat and corn. It was in 1909 that he came to Tulare 
county, Cal., where he rents one hundred and sixty acres of the 
Giannini ranch and has charge of six hundred and forty acres more 
of it as superintendent. He raises chiefly prunes, grapes, olives and 
almonds and has produced some fine crops of beans between rows 
of fruit trees. In the spring of 1911 he planted a sack and a half of 
black-eyed beans and fifteen pounds of brown beans and harvested 
two hundred sacks of the former and thirty-four sacks of brown 
beans. 

In Kansas Mr. Baxley served his fellow townsmen as township 
trustee and road superintendent. Since coming to California he has 
been too busy with his purely private affairs to give any time to 
political work, but he has well defined ideas concerning all ques- 
tions of public policy and, being an outspoken man, be is quite certain 
to be heard from whenever he shall consider it necessary to raise his 
voice in advocacy of any measure directed to the enhancement of the 
public weal. He married, at Gettysburg, Pa., February 11, 1875, Miss 
Amanda C. Beecher, a native of that state, and they have had eleven 
children, all of whom survive: William A. married Alice Griffin, and 



554 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

they have two sons, Walter and Marvin. David D., who married 
Anna Orth, has three daughters, Rose, ^'iolet and Lillian. Charles 
married Maud Meyers and they have a son named Ralph. Mary is 
the wife of Edward West and has borne him three fhildreu, Russel, 
Irene and Everett. Laura married R. R. Ross and they have a son, 
Elmer. Grace became the wife of M. J. Adams and their children are 
Viola, Harold and Catherine. Bessie is the wife of William Stevens 
and they have a daughter named Edna. Ernest married Edna Doru- 
burg and has borne him a daughter, Hilda. Mattie married Howard 
Clark and they have one child, a son, Clive Howard. The remaining 
two are Clarence and Gladvs. 



I. B. HUNSAKER 

This native son of California was born in Contra Costa county, 
August 24, 1867, and was only about a year old when his parents 
moved to Tulare county, locating near the Tule river, where they 
engaged in farming, and he eventually became a student in the pub- 
lic school. His first venture in the field of independent endeavor was 
as a grain farmer in the Waukeua neighborhood, on Tulare lake. 
After operating there with success for fifteen years he developed an 
alfalfa ranch four miles and a half southeast of Tulare, where he 
established a dairy. This property consists of four hundred and 
seventy-five acres, four hundred acres of which is under alfalfa. It 
is occupied by two dairies and is operated by tenants. 

In 1906 Mr. Iluusaker, whose residence is at F street and Kern 
avenue, Tulare, was elected a trustee of that city and he was re-elected 
in 1910. As a citizen he is public spirited and helpful to all local 
interests. Fraternally he affiliates with Olive Branch lodge No. 269, 
F. & A. M., and with local organizations of the Ancient Order of 
United Workmen and the Woodmen of the World. 

In 1893 Mr. Ilunsaker married Miss Eva Galbraith, a native of 
Stockton and a daughter of George Galbraith, and she has borne 
him two children: Juanita is a student at the University of Cali- 
fornia at Berkeley; Mary is deceased. 



OSCAR F. COLLINS 

Of the number of able men who have succeeded as dairymen in 
Tulare county, Cal., none has more richly deserved his success than 
Oscar F. Collins, of Tulare. Mr. Collins was born in Memphis, Mo., 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 555 

May 17, 1858, and was reared and educated in his native state. There, 
too, he learned farmin.c: accoi-ding to methods then in vogue, and it 
was at farm work that he was eniploj'ed till he came to California, 
where he saw hefore liiTii the road to success, straight and wide and 
not too long, and he set himself cheerfully to the task of working for 
wages to acquire capital witli which to make a promising beginning. 
He was employed thus, saving every dollar possible, from in 1887 
until in IStlO. and then he was al)le to rent a hundred and sixty acres 
of laud a mile west of Tulare, where for two years he raised grain, 
hay and stock. Then, moving to a point north of Tulare, he went 
into dairying with his brother, A. H. Collins, as his partner, and 
they continued their joint efforts till 1902. From that time, Oscar 
F. Collins operated indeijendently in the same place till 1905, when 
he came to his present dairy ranch of one hundred and twenty acres, 
where he has twenty-five acres in alfalfa, a goodly field of Egyptian 
corn and a dairy of sixteen fine cows. He has some good horses 
also, and recently sold a fine animal for $250, and has also sold 
colts from one mare to the value of $1115. 

Of the Dairymen's Co-operative Creamery association Mr. Col- 
lins is a stockholder, and he is otherwise active in a general way 
for the advancement of the dairy interests of the county and .state. 
He is a charter member of a local body of the Woodmen of the 
World and has for twenty-one years been identified with Tulare 
City lodge No. 306, Independent Order of Odd Fellows. There is no 
movement for the public benefit that he does not encourage to the 
extent of his ability. In 1892 he married Miss Marietta E. Riley, 
who was born in Missouri, and they have three children, Edith M., 
Jessie M. and George B. 



JOHN W. DUNLAP 

Hannibal, Mo., was the scene of the birth of John W. Dunlap, 
champion sack sewer of California, November 24, 1850. He was a 
son of Lemuel S. and Cynthia A. (Zumwalt) Dunlap, natives respec- 
tively of Kentucky and Missouri. The family aiTived in California 
November 1, 1869, having made the journey from St. Louis in 
eleven days on one of the earliest trans-continental railway trains. 
The trip was a novelty not only to them, but to nearly all who 
))aiticipated in it. They settled in Colusa county, where Lemuel 
Dunlap established himself as a farmer. 

Early in life John W. Dunlap began working on threshing ma- 
chines in Colusa county, and he soon l)ecame the best and fastest sack 
sewer in the state, sewing as many as two thousand sacks in a 



556 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

day and making a record of two hundred and fifty-six sacks in one 
honr. In 1883 he bought of Samuel DeWitt his present ranch of 
fifty-one acres, three miles and one-half north of Tulare City. He 
makes a specialty of raising chickens and is probably one of the 
most scientific poultry men in California, a state in which there are 
so many such dealers that to excel is somewhat of an honor. In 
1911 he received $1500 from the sale of eggs from five hundred 
chickens, mostly leghorns. His chicken ranch is well apjiointed in 
every particular and is one of the most complete in the county. 
Its incubators and other appliances are of the most efficient kinds 
and of the latest models. Mr. Dunlap has given some attention to 
peach culture and in two years received $1200 from two acres devoted 
to that fruit. He now has six acres in peach trees and two acres in 
prunes. A feature of his business is a small dairy, by means of 
which he adds considerably to his yearly profit. 

Mr. Dunlap married, April 2, 1876, Lillie F. Green, a native of 
Nevada county, Cal. Jeremiah Green, her father, was a pioneer in 
that county and was a storekeeper there in the old gold-mining 
days. Mr. and Mrs. Dunlap are the parents of five children. Bertie 
is the wife of Alexander Whaley. William E. is cashier of the First 
National Bank of Tulare. George L. is employed by the E. F. 
Gox Lumber company of Tulare. Harry is connected with the 
Stockton Iron companv. Leslie is a member of his parents' house- 
hold. 



JAMES M. ELLIOTT 

The life of James M. Elliott, Waukena, Tulare county, Cal., 
began in Cherokee county, Texas, August 23, 1881, and he was 
brought to California in 1888 by his parents, who settled at Pomona, 
Los Angeles county. In 1890 they removed to Orange county, and 
there he remained until 1908, when he took up his residence at 
Waukena and became a partner in a general merchandise business with 
his sister. Miss Hattie Elliott, who is postmistress of that town, an 
office which she fills with great fidelity, giving to its duties the most 
careful attention in all details. In connection with merchandising, 
Mr. Elliott gives attention to another enterprise, that of the installa- 
tion of pumping plants, in which he is associated with his half 
brother. 

As a merchant, Mr. Elliott is progressive and up-to-date, handling 
salable articles of good quality which he offers at such prices as to 
make them available to the trade of Waukena and its tributary ter- 
ritory. As a citizen, he takes an intelligent interest in everything 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 557 

that pertains to the general welfare. He is a believer in the square 
deal which would give the greatest good to the greatest numbers 
and is ready at all times to respond in a public-spirited way to any 
demand on behalf of the enhancement of the good of the community, 
for he realizes that he who reaps must first sow and that the pros- 
IDeritj' of one is the prosperity of all. 

The father of James M. and Hattie Elliott, the venerable Wil- 
liam M. Elliott, who was born in Mississippi January 6, 1827, was 
during ail his active years a successful farmer, and is now a 
member of the household of his son at Waukena. 



WILLIAM REINHART 

One of the numerous Pennsylvanians who have become suc- 
cessful as farmers in Tulare county, Cal., and passed on to the 
long reward of the honest and the industrious was William Rein- 
hart, who was born in Greene county in the Keystone State in 1832, 
and died in his far western home in August, 1888. When he was two 
years old his parents left Pennsylvania and settled in Ohio, where he 
was reared and educated and took up the battle of life on his own 
account. In 1857 the family moved to Cole county. Mo., and located 
near Jefferson City. There Mr. Reinhart farmed until 1874, when 
he came to California. He put in ten years at ranching near San 
Jose, in the Santa Clara valley, and early in 1885 rented land north 
of Tulare City, where he resumed farming with much promise of 
success, but died three years later. He was a man of considerable 
business ability and was for some years deputy sheriff of Miller 
county, Mo. 

On January 1, 1863, Mr. Reinhart married Margaret J. Dripps, a 
native of Pennsylvania, and they had several children, of whom five 
survive: Madoi-a, wife of Frank E. Dalzelle, of Berkeley, Cal.; 
Imbrie D., who lives on the Reinhart home farm; Pliny E., who mar- 
ried Martha Luck and has a son named Kenneth E. ; James A., of 
Hollister, Cal., who married Laura Ashcroft, and they have four 
children, James II., Margaret P., Ulla and Laura J. ; and William C, 
who is a mining engineer. Mr. Reinhart was a member of the Grange. 
He loved his liome and his farm and had little to do with politics 
beyond doing his duty as a citizen. His public spirit was such that 
he was ready at all times to aid to the extent of his ability any meas- 
ure which in his opinion promised to benefit bis town, his county, his 
state or the American people in a broader sense. 

For some years after her husband's death Mrs. Reinhart man- 
aged the farm property which he had accumulated. Later her son. 



558 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Imbrie D. Reinhart, bought the ranch, which he has operated with 
much success. It consists of forty acres, eight of which are in vine- 
yard. Considerable alfalfa is grown and the family derives a good 
income from a dairy. It should be noted that, while in his latter 
years the elder Reinhart was working leased land, he was ambitious 
for a home of his own and his widow and son have carried out his 
plans so far as they have been able. 



JOHN F. EVANS 

When the Evans family went to Tipton the plains about the site 
of that town were a runway for wild cattle. John F. Evans, of 
Tulare, was born in Santa Clara county, October 5, 1865, a son of 
Dudley and Sarah A. (Doty) Evans. Edward Doty, his mother's 
great-grandfather, came to America with the Mayflower Pilgi-ims 
and is said to have been the tirst of the party to set foot on Ply- 
mouth Rock. Later he had a memorable experience as a sailor in 
Greenland, being wrecked and cast away on the shore of that in- 
hospitable land, and having to subsist there through an entire winter 
imder circumstances such as to make his survival depend on the 
merest chance. Dudley Evans was a native of New York, while his 
wife, Sarah A. Doty, was born in Ohio, 1834 being the year in which 
they both were born. Dudley Evans crossed the plains to California 
in 1852, and went into stockraising in Santa Clara and San Luis 
Obispo counties. On coming to Tulare county, he settled six miles 
west of Tipton, taking up government land. To his original one 
hundred and sixty acres he added a purchase of one hundred and 
sixty from the railroad people and then owned three hundred and 
twenty acres, all in one body. When he came to the vicinity there 
were only seven houses in Tulare. It should be noted that thei-.e is 
evidence in support of the statement that to him belongs the credit 
of having burned the first kiln of brick in Tulare City. He passed 
away in 1893. His widow, who lives at Tipton, is surrounded by 
loving relatives and friends, happy in her declining years and most 
interesting in her reminiscences of the pioneer days which tried the 
souls of men and women among the mountain passes and prairie 
stretches of beautiful California, a land of promise and of fulfill- 
ment, but a land of vicissitudes which sometimes sank to the plane 
of fatal disappointments. Following are the names, in order of 
birth, of the children of Dudley and Sarah A. (Doty) Evans: John 
F. ; William, of Fresno; Albert D., of Cochran; Elmore H. and Harry 
N., of Tipton. 

John F. Evans spent his early life on his father's ranch, went 



TULAKE AND KINGS COUNTIES 559 

to school and jyained a good deal of useful knowledge of different 
kinds in the college of hard experience. His ranching life is varied 
and was spent in different parts of the country. It includes the 
operation of threshing machines, rough work on the Creighton ranch 
near Tipton and the breaking of wild horses, and it has other 
interesting features. He started farming on his own account in 
1889, on rented land, six miles east of Tulare, where he remained 
only one year. After that he operated a thousand to fifteen hun- 
dred acres in the Dinuba and Orosi section of Tulare county. Ee- 
turning to the vicinity of Tipton, he first rented and later bought 
two hundred and forty acres. He is now renting out two hundred 
and forty acres near Tulare. A dairy of fifty cows is a feature 
of his enterprise, and he has one hundred acres in alfalfa. In 1910 
he had twenty acres of Egyptian corn which yielded eighteen sacks 
to the acre, and in 1911 eight acres, planted to the same corn, gave 
him twenty-two sacks to the acre. He owns a fine home on East 
King street, Tiilare, where he and his family have lived for some 
years. 

John F. Evans married, September 25, 1892, Mary Cortner, a 
native of California, and they have children as follows: Reba L., 
Harry D., James and Helen A. Mrs. Evans's father was William C. 
Cortner, a native of Tennessee, who came overland to California in 
1852, ox-teams affording him a means of transportation. For a 
time he mined with some success, but we find he was in Tulare 
county before the end of 1853, with a stock ranch in the mountains 
and a farm north of Visalia, but later he farmed near Orosi, and 
died in March, 1894. The father of Mrs. Cortner was John 
Jordan, who was in command of the party with which he came 
overland to California — the same pioneer Jordan who helped to 
blaze the Hockett and Jordan trail in the mountains. The following- 
named of the children of Mr. and Mrs. Cortner were living in 1912 : 
Mrs. S. L. N. Ellis; Lee, of Tipton; Mrs. John F. Evans"; Talbert, 
of Orosi; Preston, of Auckland. Mr. Evans is a member of the 
Independent Order of Foresters and a director of the Tipton 
Co-operative Creamery, and in other relations he has demonstrated 
his public spirit so unmistakably that he is regarded by all who 
know him as a citizen generously helpful to all public interests. 



FRANK GIANNINI 

Of Italian ancestry, Frank Giannini was born at Porto Ferrajo, 
Island of Elba, off the Tuscan coast, March 3, 1864, and is one 
of three brothers who came to the United States. His parents, 



560 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Dominieo and Magdalena (Bolano) Giannini, had also four daughters. 
The motlier died on Elba in 1869, the father, who was a prosperous 
farmer and vineyardist, died there in 1911. 

Frank Giannini early learned the secrets of grajie culture and 
at seventeen was given charge of his father's vineyard. Soon after 
he was twenty-one, he carried out a well-studied plan to immigrate 
to California, of which he had read much, believing that here he 
would find a climate not unlike that of Elba, which would oifer 
better chances for advancement than he could obtain there. Bring- 
ing with him $1200, for the purchase of land, in 1885, about a 
month after he landed at San Francisco he began grain farming 
on his own land near Brentwood. An experience there running 
through two years convinced him that he had not hit on the true 
jalan for industrial and commercial success. He first saw Tulare 
county in 1887, but did not buy land there until about two years 
later. Meanwhile he farmed and raised fruit and grapes in Madera 
and Fresno counties and during the period from 1887 to 1902 he 
operated a stock farm and was manager of an orchard, both located 
at Eeedley, Fresno county. In 1889, with two others, he bought a 
hundred and sixty acres of raw land, two miles and three-quarters 
northeast of Tulare. The price paid was $20,000, a very high price 
for the time, yet as events proved a good investment. A hundred 
and twenty acres were set out to an orchard and the rest of the 
tract to vineyard, and in 1891, by rei^lacing an occasional vine with 
a tree, increased profits per acre were made possible. In that year 
Mr. Giannini bought out the interests of his partners. By purchase 
he has acquired four hundred and eighty acres adjoining, and now 
he has an entire section in one body, eighty acres of which is de- 
voted to alfalfa. On his place are two wells with never-failing sup- 
ply of water which are pumped by two fifteen-horsepower electric 
motors. He has displaced his gas motors formerly used for pumping 
by electric motors; he is a stockholder in the Electric Power com- 
pany. He is now putting down a third well which will be pumped 
by means of twenty-horsepower electric motors. On the place are 
modern buildings of ample capacity for every purpose, and dry- 
ing yards and packing houses for jireparing the fruit for ship- 
ment and forwarding it when ready. There are also a new winery, 
with a capacity of two hundred thousand gallons annually, and a 
brandy plant, with an annual capacity of fifty thousand gallons. In 
the busy season Mr. Giannini employs on the place one hundred 
and fifty men. In 1910 he incorporated the Elba Land company, 
which now includes most of his interests, being capitalized at $500,000, 
and he is the president and general manager. 

Besides his regular business Mr. Giannini has interests of im- 
portance, being a stockholder in the First National Bank of Tulare, 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 561 

having given the site for the Tulare Power comioany's phiut and 
promoted the Tidare Milling company and bought the first share of 
its stock that could be purchased. He sold his Tipton ranch in 1908, 
his dairy ranch in 11)11, and devotes his attention to his land 
business, to fruit, alfalfa and wine. He has had much to do 
with organizations to promote the advancement of these and kindred 
interests, and is a Mason, of Blue lodge and Royal Arch chapter, 
having originally identified himself with the Madera lodge and been 
transferred to the Reedley lodge. His acquaintance with the Cali- 
fornia fruit and wine fraternity is large and constantly increasing 
in a measure commensurate with his advancing fortunes and the 
growth of his home interests. His home stead has been enlarged to 
twelve hundred and sixty acres; he has two hundred and fifty acres 
in peaches, five hundred and sixty in vineyard, one hundred and 
seventy-five in prunes and the largest individual orchard in Tulare 
county. His home acreage in alfalfa is ninety acres. In 1911 he 
sold prunes at $115 a ton. 

Miss Louise Lombardi, daughter of a pioneer in northern Cali- 
fornia, became Mr. Giaunini's wife and was most helpful to him 
in all his aspirations, working with him side by side for all that 
has meant success to both. She died in 1907, leaving one child, 
Aulrina. 



EMERIE RENAUD 

The French Canadian, wlierever his lot may be cast, generally 
develops into a good and itrosperous citizen with much credit for his 
easy manner and thrifty qualities. This fact is illustrated in the success- 
ful life and high standing of t]merie Reuand, a native of the jirovince 
of Quebec and a descendant of one of the oldest and most honored 
French families of Canada, who owns and occupies one of the most 
attractive of the many beautiful home farms in Tulare county, a 
stock farm four and a half miles north of Tulare. Mr. Renaud was 
born July 25, 1857, near Montreal, which was the birthjilace of 
his grandsire, Charles Renaud, Sr., and of bis father, Charles Renaud, 
Jr. The former farmed all his life near Montreal and his home- 
stead is now the property of one of his grandsons. Following 
in the footsteps of his ancestors, Charles Renaud was a farmer all 
his life, and passed away when be was but fifty-seven. ITis wife 
was Marcellian Pelon, born in Quebec, daughter of Celesta Pelon, 
who was a farmer. She and ten of her twelve children sur\ive. 



562 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Enierie, the third in order of birth, is the only one of them living 
in California. 

In the district school and on the farm f]nierie Eenaud received 
the practical education that has made possible the siiccess he has 
achieved. "When he was sixteen years old lie came with a In-other 
and an uncle to Nevaila, but soon located at Sacramento. Cal, where 
lie worked as a farm hand two years. After that he mined four or 
five years with indifferent success in the diggings at Bodie, Cal., 
and at others in Nevada, then returned to Sacramento, where he 
married and whence he came in ISS-i to Tulare county. He bought 
a farm on Elk Bayou, which, however, proved unproductive, and 
when he had operated it at a loss for two years he rented land 
and engaged on an extensive scale in grain raising and this latter 
venture met with great success. Leasing from J. Goldman & Com- 
pany the old Stokes estate of three thousand acres, he raised grain 
in large quantities on that land as well as on a three-thousand- 
acre ranch near Porterville. which he leased a number of years. 
Other inirchases and leases brought his holdings to the ten thou- 
sand acre mark, and the in-osecution of his enterprise required the 
use of one hundred and tifty horses and mules and two harvesters. 
In 1903 he bought the old J. B. Zuniwalt place, four hundred and 
twenty acres, in the management of which he has been very pros- 
perous, having four hundred acres in alfalfa, a dairy of one hundred 
cows with niodei-n equipment, including a sejiarator, lilenty of 
good horses and three hundred hogs. Besides operating his home- 
stead, he operates under lease thirteen hundred acres adjoining, 
which he devotes to grain and stockraising. Tie is constantly im- 
proving his home place and now has one of the really fine residences 
of that part of the county, standing as it does amid palms and 
orange trees, on a beautiful lawn. Mr. Reuaud is a director in the 
Dair^onen's Co-operative Dairy company. 

At Sacramento, Mr. Eenaud married Miss Mary Gignerre, born 
in Yolo county. Cal., daughter of Frank Giguerre. a pioneer of 1849. 
and they have nine living children: Joseph. Walter. Laura, Flora 
(wife of J. Damron, Jr.), Arthur, Blanche, Bryan, Elma and Collis. 
Mr. Renaud affiliates with Tulare City lodge No. 306. Independent 
Order of Odd Fellows, with Tulare Encampment, and with Olive 
Branch lodge No. 269, F. & A. M. His moral and theological creed 
is "Do right and it will be right." Politically he is a steadfast 
Democrat, and as such he was elected to the jiresidency of the 
board of school trustees of the Enterprise district. In a jniblic- 
spirited way he takes a deep and abiding interest in all propositions 
looking to the advancement of the community or the amelioration of 
the condition of the people at large. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 563 

1 
JOSEPH SILVEIRA 

On one of the Azores Islands of Portugal, Joseph Silveira was 
born October 24, 1877. He came to the United States in 1895, when 
he was about eighteen years old, and that same year he located in 
California. For three months he was employed near Truckee on a 
dairy farm, then ^vent to Marin county, Cal., where he was similarly 
employed for three years. From there he went to Nevada City, 
Nevada county, Cal., where he worked in sawmills in the mountains 
and at times prospected and mined for gold. Oakland, Cal., was his 
next objective point. There, in partnership with his brother, he was 
in the creamery business about a year. In 190.3 he came to Tulare 
county, where for a short time he was a partner with another in a 
dairy ranch, but in the fall of that year he came to his present loca- 
tion. He is the owner of eighty acres and rents two hundred and 
forty acres, has seventy-tive cattle and milks fifty Holstein cows. 
Ninety acres he devotes to alfalfa. As a farmer and dair\Tnan he is 
prosperous in Tulare county even beyond his expectation and is 
recognized by a wide circle of acquaintances as a self-made man of 
much prominence and of even greater promise. He affiliates with 
the U. P. E. C. and the I. D. E. S., Portuguese orders, and with 
the Woodmen of the World. 

In 1897 Mr. Silveira married Violanto Eserada, a native of the 
Azores Islands, and they had five children, here mentioned in the 
order of their nativity: Manuel, Mary, Louisa, Carrie and Hilda. 
On June 2, 1912, Mrs. Silveira died. Mr. Silveira mai-ried again. 
August 26, 1912, Miss Mary P>razill, born on the Azores Islands, 
becoming his wife. Though Mr. Silveira has not been as long in 
Tulare county as some of its American-born citizens, he has demon- 
strated that liis public spirit is adequate to any demand that may 
be reasonably made upon it. His aspirations are for the uplift of the 
community and there is no movement for the general good that does 
not receive his heartfelt encouragement and support. 



GEORGE ULYSSES WRAY 

One of the most popular and well-known citizens of Tulare county 
who by the exercise of untiring energy and inflexible will has forged 
to the fore in many industrial circles is George Ulysses AVray, who 
was a pioneer stockraiser in this vicinity, having settled about five 
miles east of Tulare City in 1874. He is a brilliant type of the 
self-made, self-reliant man, who in spite of many hardships and 
numerous impediments in the road for knowledge has so thoroughly 



564 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

overcome them that he is today numbered among the reliable and 
noteworthy sliort-stor_y wi'iters, his chief theme being nature study. 
Added to this he is a newspaper correspondent of some note 
and active interest and wide knowledge of all current events and 
political subjects makes him a valued acquisition on the publishing 
staff. 

George W. Wray, his father, was born in Crawfordsville, Ind., 
and came across the plains in 1851. He was a cabinet-maker by 
trade and upon coming to California followed mining at Hangtown, 
now Placerville, in Eldorado county. He was married at Suisun 
City to Miss Ethalinda Vanderburgh, who was born in Iowa and 
came across the plains in 1861. After his marriage he engaged 
in farming and the nursery business at Placerville and continued to 
live there until they came to Tulare county in 1874. Mr. Wray was 
the first man to make a success of farming under the no-fence law 
by taking up trespassing stock under a law passed by the state 
legislature in 1875, and was also organizer of one of the best 
and oldest ditch systems in Tulare county. This is known as the 
Farmers' Ditch company, and he served as its superintendent for 
over twenty .years, and he was the largest stockholder during that 
period. Mrs. Wray is now living near Los Angeles at sixty-four 
years of age, Mr. Wray having passed away November 24, 1910. 
They were the parents of a family of ten children, seven daughters 
and three sons, who are all living. George W. Wray had home- 
steaded a tract of a hundred and sixty acres on the north fork of 
the North Tule river, which he proved up, and which his son, 
George U., bought at the time of the former's death in 1910. 

The eldest of his parents' family George U. Wray was born 
at Placerville, March 25, 1869, and was about five years of age 
when he was brought by his parents to Tulare county. Owing to 
the unsettled conditions at that time educational facilities were 
meager and the boy was obliged to go to work on the stock farm 
at an early age. When he was fifteen he started out for himself, 
working at general farming for wages for four years, when he 
engaged in farming and stockraising for himself. When he was 
twenty-one he homesteaded a hundred and sixty acres east of Milo. On 
March 25, 1904, he was married in Fresno county to Miss Josephine 
Wood, who died without issue at the present home of George U. 
Wray in May, 1905. Mr. Wray came to his present ranch about 
fourteen years ago and bought a hundred and twenty acres, also 
homesteading the hundred and sixty-acre tract mentioned above, 
and he now owns two ranches aggregating four hundred acres of 
land on which is done general farming and stockraising. He has 
started a young nursery and is clearing land, intending to put in 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 565 

about twenty-five acres to apples and it is also bis intention to raise 
bis own nursery stock. 

Mr. Wray lias steadfastly refused political preferment, for he 
is widely known for bis unusual ability and broad intelligence of 
matters of moment. He was tendered tbe nomination for supervisor 
on the Populist ticket at tbe time Populism was at its heigbt in 
Tulare county, but declined tbis bonor. Nevertheless be has taken 
a very active interest in ]iolitics, being forcibly active wherever there 
is a principle at stake and he is known as an ultra radical progressive. 
In fighting the saloons be has been especially active and he has 
assisted in wiping out several of these evils in tbe county through 
his writings and active jiolitical work. Notwithstanding the fact 
that be was handicapped by few advantages when a child, be is 
of an active, alert and inquiring mind, and through extensive read- 
ing, close observation and natural intelligence he has become well- 
informed and is acceded to be among tbe most entertaining as well 
as instructive writers of tbe day. For two years he was a corres- 
pondent for the Visalia Times, also tbe Farm View, which was printed 
at Porterville, and for fourteen years served as the regular local 
correspondent for tbe Porterville Enterprise, and is now local cor- 
respondent for tbe Porterville Recorder. He is strongly opposed to 
tbe liquor traffic and has written many stirring articles against it. 
Having ever lived the simple life, close to nature, he has become 
quite a hunter and has experienced many thrilling adventures which 
he has told in a number of short stories with such interesting style 
as to endear him to his many readers, not the least of which are 
the yoimg readers of the Youth's Companion and similar popular 
publications. A few years ago be started writing up his own ex- 
periences in bunting bear, deer, etc., in the Sierras, writing under 
a nom de plume, which are printed in magazine form and attract 
nmcb favorable attention. 



AECHIE F. LANEY 

A native son of California and of Tulare county, Archie F. 
Laney was born in 1877, a son of George W. and Octavia (Rether- 
ford) Laney. His father was born in Ohio and came to California 
in 1873 ; be was married in Iowa. He bought land and raised grain 
and cattle until he retired from active work about fifteen years ago, 
when his sons assumed tbe management, and they have continued the 
business in which be was tbe pioneer and are yet raisinc: and buving 
and selling stock, being as well known in tbe market as any other 



566 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

dealers in the central part of the state. Their ranch comprises twelve 
hundred acres and they carry about three hundred fat cattle each 
year, raising only enougli grain for feed and growing alfalfa for 
their own use. The father passed away November 13, 1912. 

While Archie Laney has never taken an active interest in prac- 
tical politics and has never sought public office, he has well defined 
ideas concerning all questions of economic bearing and in a very 
public-spirited way performs his whole duty as a citizen. In fact, 
if we may believe those who know him best and are best able to 
testify in such a matter, he is liberally helpful to all movements 
having for tlieir object the advancement and prosperity of the com- 
munity and ill a private way has many times proven himself a de- 
pendable friend, doing what he could by word and deed to help 
struggling neighbors over some of the stony places in life's path- 
wav. 



WILLIAM GOUGH 

In Ohio, Preble county, William Gough, who lives two miles 
northwest of Orosi in Tulare county, was born October 12, 1838. 
There he was reared and educated and obtained a practical knowl- 
edge of farming and of different kinds of useful labor. He was 
about twenty-two years old when, in 1860, he came to California, the 
party of which he was a member being under command of Captain 
McFarlaud, who had twice before crossed the jilains to and fro. The 
train consisted of sixty-two wagons and the party included one hun- 
dred and twenty men and thirteen young women. The route was 
by way of Omaha, Lone Tree, along the Platte, Salt Lake City, the 
sink of the Humboldt and thence through beautiful California valleys 
to Sacramento. The Indians were menacing and succeeded in run- 
ning oft" a good many cattle, but none of their attacks were fatal 
to any memlier of the party. Forty or fifty cattle died by the 
way and at Rabbit Hole Springs one member of the party passed 
away. For a number of years Mr. Gough lived in Sacramento, most 
of the time engaged in teaming between that point and Nevada. He 
drove a ten-mule team and the rates on freight ranged from six 
cents to fifteen cents for one hundred pounds. From Sacramento 
he came down into Kern county and filed on one hundred and sixty 
acres of government land which he later relinquished in order to 
move to Visalia to engage again in teaming. For seven years he 
drove a stage back and forth between Visalia and Havilah. It was 
after he took up his residence in "\'isalia that he married Miss 



TULAKE AND KINGIS COUNTIES 687 

Maliuda J. Pemberton, a native of Missouri and a daughter of the 
lion. James E. Pemberton. With his brother as a partner Mr. 
Pemberton eoudueted the iirst general store in V'isalia. lie was 
elected to the state legislature for the session of 1865-66 and served 
with much ability. Later he was elected ti'easurer of Kern county 
on the Democratic ticket and re-elected on the same ticket with the 
Republican indorsement. He was elected for a third term and died 
in office. A man of much business ability, he became one of the 
leading cattlemen of the county. Mrs. Gough has borne her hus- 
band four children, Kuby A., Anna P., Elmo and Leroy. Euby A. 
married E. E. Montague and lives at Orosi. Elmo, who is a grad- 
uate of the public schools, married Beulah Howard and they live on 
the Robert place; they have three children, Howardine, Eugene and 
an infant. Leroy took for his wife Ethel Tellyer and lives on Sand 
creek, Squaw valley. 

When Mr. Gough came to this spot little or no farming had 
been done in the vicinity and cattle were fed on the plains, over 
which deer and antelope roamed almost unmolested. In the swamp 
were many elk and the bear was a pest to all who tried to raise hogs. 
He has participated in and aided to the extent of his ability the 
development of the community from that time to the present, and 
as a Republican has been influential in local affairs. 



GEORGE ALEXANDER ROBISON 

An identification with Tulare county interests for more than a 
quarter of a century, during which time he has been almost a con- 
tinuous resident in t])e connty, has placed George Alexander Robison 
among the best known citizens here. He is a native of Linneus, 
Linn county, Mo., born April 27. 1851, son of Andrew and Eliza (Mar- 
low) Robison, who took their son when a babe in arms to Perry 
county, 111. In tliat county he was reared and educated, living there 
imtil 1874, when he went to Indiana, his father at that time coming 
to California. It was in November, 1875, that George A. came to 
California to join his jiarents, and two years thereafter was located 
in Tulare county. Fi-oni tliere he moved to near Santa Rosa, Sonoma 
county. During these travels he had been working for wages in tlie 
intervals of farming rented land. Returning to Tulare county he 
farmed three-quarters of a section, which was part of the present 
site of Orosi. In Sonoma county he worked land north of Santa 
Rosa near Fulton. He remembers 1877 as a dry year in Tulare 
county; wlieat growing and stockraisiug failed, liorses died, and young 
sheep were killed in order to save the old ones. 



568 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

In 1880, in Sonoma coimty, Mr. Robison married Maiy Russell, 
a native of Sonoma county, Cal., and a daughter of Hugh and Sarah 
Russell. She has borne him five children: Minnie, Lawrence, Dora 
and Nora (twins), and Pearlie. Minnie married Lee Finley, of 
Tulare coimty, and they have two sons and a daughter. Lawrence 
married Martha Griggs. The three others are members of their 
parents' household. 

After his marriage Mr. Robison came back to Tulare county and 
bought twenty acres of land near Orosi at $75 an acre, his present 
home, which was part of a grain ranch. He has fourteen and a half 
acres under vines, his leading grapes being Muscats and Sultanas. 
An orchard of four ln;ndred young peach trees is a feature of his 
farm. It includes three and a half acres and in 1912 brought him 
$152. While Mr. Robison regards 1911 as having been a poor crop 
year, he states that in that year he sold eighteen tons of raisins. A 
comparison of these figures with those of 1893, his first crop, when 
he shipped his cro]3 to New York and cleared $50 on it, is not at all 
discouraging, and his many years' residence in this vicinity, while 
it has not been without its disappointments, has nevertheless on the 
whole brought him substantial prosperity. Pre-eminently a self- 
made man, he has succeeded because he is a good farmer and a good 
citizen. Politically he affiliates with the Democratic party. 



MOSES S. JENANYAN 

One of the most i>rosperous fruit growers in Tulare county is 
Moses S. Jenanyan, who was born April 22, 1864, in Armenia and 
there made his home until in 1893, when he came to Chicago, bring- 
ing with him an exhibit of goods from his native land. In 1894 he 
brought the exhibit to San Francisco and then returned to the 
east. He came to Tulare county January 4, 1904, and bought ninety 
acres of land, bare and uncultivated, which he has developed into 
a fine fruit farm, having now ten acres of Emperor and sixty acres 
of Muscat grapes, also ten acres of oranges and ten acres of peaches. 
In the season of 1910 he sold forty-five tons of Muscats, his Emperors 
not being in full bearing, and his peach crop brought him $1000. 
He is improving his place with a modern cement residence and has 
built a barn and made other improvements on the place. 

One hundred and thirty-two acres of fruit land in this vicinity 
is owned by Helena R. Jenanyan, a native of New York, who lives 
in Philadelphia. She has ten acres in Emperors, thirty in Muscats, 
thirty-five in Thompsons and ten in Malagas, and has an orange 
grove of fifteen acres. She sold in 1910 fifty-five tons of Emperors, 
thirty-five of Muscats, thirty of Thompsons and thirty-five of 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 569 

Malagas. Her orange crop in 1911 brought about $1500. 

The Eev. H. vS. Jenanyan bought about fifteen hundred acres of 
land in association with his brother, Moses S., and they brought 
twenty-five families to a colony which they have established on this 
land on Rural Free Delivery Route No. 1, four miles southeast of 
Mr. Jenanyan 's homestead. This has increased to about sixty fam- 
ilies in 191,3. They employ about thirty workmen and at bleaching 
time hire about forty people. Most of their fruit they ship direct to 
eastern markets. 

In Philadelphia, in 1899, Mr. Jenanyan was married to Miss 
Maude P. Pulsifer, a native of Canada, and they are the parents 
of four children, viz. : Gladys and Clarence, who were born in Bos- 
ton, and Vincent and Alden, natives of California. 

The ranch of Mr. Jenanyan, of ninety acres, which had been 
a wheat field before he bought it, has been improved by an irriga- 
tion system and transformed into a fine orange and grajie farm. 
Mr. Jenanyan is as enterprising toward the public welfare as he is 
where his own personal interests are involved. As a Re])ublican 
he has been elected to the office of school trustee of the Churchill 
district. In religion he affiliates with the Presbyterian church. 



DANIEL MURPHY 

A career of usefulness and unceasing labor has been that of 
Daniel Murphy, who has figured prominently in the development of 
Dinuba and Orosi for many years. He was born February 1, 1828, 
in Antigonish (Indian name for River of Fish), Nova Scotia, and 
there his life was spent until he reached the age of about sixty- 
five years. He made a marked success of his life as a farmer and 
manufacturer, devoting himself principally to milling and to woolen 
manufacture. He built up the business from a small beginning, in 
partnership with Robert Trotter, combining gristmilling and woolen 
manufacturing of tweeds and yarns as well as blankets and flannels, 
and so extensive did the enterprise become that he long employed 
a liiindred or more skilled workmen. Later he built a small steam 
mill, and this he sold for $7,000, in order to come to California, and 
in November, 1892, he became one of the jiioneers of this section 
of the county, buying forty acres of land, twenty of which he later 
sold. His land was all wheatfield and there were no graded roads. 
He acquired other property and had two stores and seven saloons 
in Dinuba, and two houses and one store in Orosi. Mr. Murphy 
planted six acres to grapes, seven acres to peaches and in 1909 
replaced the peach orchard with an eight-acre tract of oranges. 



570 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

So well equipped is his ])lace in the matter of water supply that he 
could irrigate it more cheaply with his own plant than from the 
ditch. Nevertheless his public spirit impels him to patronize the 
latter. His well is eighty feet deep, with eleven-inch casings and 
a five-horsepower engine for pumping. All his operations are car- 
ried on by the latest and most scientific methods. 

In Nova Scotia, Mr. Murphy married Miss Ann MacDonald, who 
has borne him children as follows: Bessie (Mrs. Sydney Holland), 
who has a son, Percy; AVilliam, who married Rose Phelps and lives 
in St. Paul, Minn. ; Tina, who married Wesley Ferguson and has four 
children, they residing in Minneapolis; Huntley, who married Abbie 
Wheelock, and is an employe of the Southern Pacific Railroad com- 
pany, living in Oakland; Grace, who became the wife of J. H. Mc- 
Crackin, druggist, at Dinuba. Four children died in Nova Scotia. 
Mrs. Murphy passed away June 18, 1902. 

In jiolitics Mr. Murphy is a stanch Republican and in religion a 
communicant of the Presbyterian church. As a citizen he is pultlic- 
spiritedly helpful to all worthy interests of the community. 



ELIZABETH NAVARRE 

It was in Monroe, Mich., that Elizabeth Navarre was born in 
1842 and lived until 1881, when she accompanied her husband, Sam- 
uel Navarre, to California, where he bought one hundred and sixty 
acres of land in Tulare county, the site of her present home. They 
were married in Michigan in 1868 and had three children, Bert. 
Dot and Lillie. Bert passed away in 1901, aged thirty-one years. 
Dot and Lillie are married. Mrs. Navarre's parents were natives 
of Ireland, who sought and found their fortunes in Aanerica and 
have gone to their reward. Mr. Navarre was born in Michigan and 
was a man of winning personality, who was beloved by all who 
knew him. He died at his home in Tulare county in 1897, aged 
fifty-six years. Their children were all born in Monroe, Mich. 

Since the death of her husband Mrs. Navarre has sold a part of 
the old farm, but retains what she has always called her home place. 
When she came to the county, settlement was so sparse that many 
miles intervened between the luuisos. The country was wild, lonely 
and unproductive, and her husband had no difficulty in buying good 
land at $2.50 an acre. Most of her land is planted to grain, and 
along this line she is farming very successfully. A woman of the 
highest character and genial and affable, she has made and kept 
.many friends in the community in which she has cast her lot, and 
in a iiul)lic-spirited way she has done whatever was possible for the 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 571 

promotion of the general interest. Her late husband is remembered 
as having been a friend of education and a ijromoter of progress 
and prosperity. 



LEWIS A. SICKLES 

In Lewis county, northeast Missouri, Lewis A. Sickles was born, 
in 1874, and there made his home until he was about twenty-five 
years old, when he went to Kansas City, Mo., where he lived until 
1904. Then he came to Porterville, Tulare county, and after living 
there two years he removed to Springville, Cal. Two years later he 
bought the Springville hotel, which he still owns, and which has been 
written up in the Visalia Morning Delta, published December 21, 
1912, as follows: 

There is no class of institutions throughout the whole category 
of business concerns which exercise so wide an influence or have so 
important a bearing upon the general character of a city as its lead- 
ing and most representative hotels. These establishments have an 
iudi\-iduality which becomes impressed and engrafted upon the 
character of the communit}^, and to the vast majority of the trans- 
ient traveling fraternity a city is just what its hotels make it; for 
it is here that the visitor receives his first and his last distinct im- 
pressions, and accordingly as he is favorably or unfavorably inclined 
toward the hostelry of his temporary abiding place, in just that 
measure is he pleased or displeased with the community in which it 
is located. 

Springville has every reason to be proud of the Springville 
hotel; it has thirty-two large airy rooms, all comfortably furnished, 
and the dining room has a seating capacity of seventy-two. 

Mayor L. A. Sickles bought this hotel six years ago, and then 
it was not the hotel that it is today, for it was only one-third of 
its ])resent size. Mr. Sickles is comnumly referred to as the Mayor of 
Springville, for it was to him that the honor fell to drive the last 
spike in the completion of the railroad. Mayor Sickles is a genial 
host, ever looking after the comforts of his guests, and he leaves no 
stone unturned to impress upon all of his patrons the wonderful 
resources of this chosen spot. 

In 1906 Mr. Sickles married Anna Akin, a native of Shelby 
county, Ohio. In 1895 his father and mother came to this state and 
his father, B. T. Sickles, is living in Porterville. Mr. Sickles is one 
of llie directors of the Chamber of Commerce of Springville and 
was so imjiortant a factor in securing the construction of tlio rail- 



572 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

road to that city that ou the completion of the line he was tendered 
the honor mentioned. 

This progressive man was educated in his native Missouri and 
has always been connected with enterprises of importance. For four 
years before he came to California he was a foreman in the packing 
house of Schwarzsehild & Sulzberger at Kansas City. After com- 
ing to California he became proprietor of the hotel as stated. This 
is the only hotel in the town and he manages it with much ability, 
catering successfully to both transient and commercial trade. 

It is as a self-made man that Mr. Sickles should appeal most 
strongly to those who come to know him. Starting out in life with 
nothing, he has made a success in every way creditable, and such of 
this world's goods as he possesses he has won by his own unaided 
ability and industry. Wherever he has lived his public spirit has 
never been found wanting. He is deservedly popular in business 
circles and in a fraternal way he affiliates with the Modern Wood- 
men. 



WILLIAM H. MILLINGHAUSEN 

Of German-American lineage, William H. Millinghausen was 
born at Lincoln, Neb., in 1877. His father was a native of Germany 
and his mother made her advent into this world in Michigan; they 
are now living in retirement from the active labors that commanded 
their devotion through all their earlier years. They gave their son 
such advantages for education as were possible, and under his 
father's instruction he learned the practical side of lumbering and 
farming. When he was two years old they moved, taking him from 
Nebraska to Oregon, and two years later the family came to Tulare 
county, and it was in the Mountain View school that he fitted him- 
self for business life. 

Practically all of his life Mr. Millinghausen has spent in Tulare 
county, and practically all of it has been given to two interests, 
lumbering and farming, and in the latter avocation he has given 
particular attention to stockraising. As a lumberman and an owner 
of stock, he naturally engaged in the hauling of lumber, and from 
that work a graduation to miscellaneous freighting was natural, 
and as a freighter he has also busied himself profitably from time 
to time. 

The father of William H. is August Millinghausen, who is a 
man of strong character; his mother is such a woman as gives her- 
self heart and soul to the moral instruction of her children; and 
consequently Mr. Millinghausen in his youth did not lack the ethical 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 573 

and patriotic instruction wbicli is essential to good citizenship. Those 
who know him recognize in him a fellow-townsman of public spirit, 
who does all that can be expected of him in the encouragement of 
measures directed to the general good. While he is not an active 
politician, he is well informed on all public questions and votes for 
the men who will, in his judgment, do the best for the community. 
He has always been liberal in support of the church and of public 
education. 



ULYSSES GBANT PARSONS 

A self-made man who in spite of many vicissitudes and hard- 
ships has succeeded and is now prospering as a farmer in Tulare 
county is Ulysses Grant Parsons, a native of Meigs county, Ohio. 
Named in honor of General Grant it appears that he has taken as 
his motto Grant's dogged declaration, "We will tight it out on this 
line if it takes all summer." 

It was in July, 1866, that Mr. Parsons was born. In 1884, when 
he was eighteen years old, he turned his back on his Ohio home 
and went west as far as Nebraska, with a few dollars iu his 
pocket over and above the sum absolutely necessary for traveling 
expenses. He worked tliere on farms until in 1890, when he went 
to Portland, Ore., and found employment on a ranch at thirty dollars 
a month. From Oregon he came to California, arriving in Tulare 
county, February 22, 1891, and here for a time he was variously 
employed, sometimes working for wages and sometimes cutting 
wood and selling it in town, just as General Grant had done at St. 
Louis many years before. But all the time he was saving all the 
money he could possibly piat aside until at length he was able 
to buy a team with which he returned to Oregon, seeking better 
opportunities. Nevertheless he found conditions there so bad that 
he made his way back to Nebraska and put in one hundred acres of 
corn, which failed because of lack of rain. He then found work in 
the hay fields at one dollar a day and board. Returning to California 
by way of Nevada he left his wife and children there and came 
on to Tulare, arriving with twenty-five cents in his pockets and owing 
the railroad company $1.80 baggage charges. He borrowed the latter 
amount from a friend, securing liis scant personal property, and then 
looked around for work. Bound to get a start in some way, he 
worked at odd jobs in Tulare and Fresno counties, being at one 
time obliged to work for only sixty cents a day. By working and 
scrimping and persevering he at length managed to save enough 
money to enable him to rent a farm of forty acres near Visalia. 



574 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Later he bought the place, paying fifty dollars down, improved 
it and then sold it at a profit of six hundred dollars. He next, in 
1903, purchased the one hundred and forty acre farm northwest of 
Tulare which has since been his home, and at this time he owes 
not a dollar in the world and owns one of the most productive 
ranches of its size in the county. He has twenty acres of Egj^tian 
corn and fifty acres of alfalfa, raises grain and sells fifty to one 
hundred and fifty tons of hay each year. One of the paying features 
of his enterprise is a dairy of fifteen cows. 

In 1889 Mr. Parsons married Miss Annie McConnaughay, who 
has borne him children as follows: Gertrude, Maud, Edna, Inez, 
Frank, Fred and Fay (twins), and George. Mrs. Parsons has 
always been a true helpmate to her husband and during the earlier 
years of their married life encouraged and assisted him so effectively 
that he readily accedes to her the credit for more than half of his 
success. 



FRANK P. ROBERTSON 

At Willamette Valley, Ore., Frank P. Robertson, now one of Tulare 
county's best known farmers and dairymen, was born February 18, 
1855, son of William J. and Mary (Matthews) Robertson, the former 
a native of New Jersey, the latter of Missouri. William J. Robertson 
was the captain in command of the troops which fought for law, 
order and civilization in the Rogue River war in Oregon, and years 
afterward he ably filled the office of justice of the peace at Tulare, 
Cal., where his son has come to the front as a splendid citizen and a 
first-class man of affairs. 

When he was but sixteen years old, Frank P. Robertson left 
Oregon, and, making his way to California, settled in Tehama county, 
where he farmed till he moved on to Modoc county to take charge of 
a sawmill. He came to Tulare county in 1885 and found emploAanent 
on the old J. B. Zumwalt ranch, where he set out many of the trees 
which, developed to largeness, now adorn the place. For some years 
past he has been the owner of ranch interests more or less extensive, 
mostly within the limits of Tvilare county, and at one time owned 
a ranch three miles south of Visalia. He first occupied the ranch 
which is now his home by lease, and in 1906 acquired it by purchase. 
Formerly he farmed it to grain, but for ten years has been operating 
it as a dairy plant, having now about twenty-five cows. Fifty-five 
acres of the place he devotes to alfalfa and pasture, and recently he 
has grown Egyptian corn with much success. 

The Independent Order of Odd Fellows, lodge and encampment. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 575 

iiK'lndes Mr. Robertson in its niembeivship, and be affiliates also with 
the Woodmen of the World and with the Circle of Woodcraft. He 
has a wide acquaintance throughout the county and is esteemed as a 
high-minded, i)ublic-s])irited citizen who has the welfare of his com- 
munity very much at heart. Tie married, in 1888, Josephine Siddall, 
who died in 1896, leaving three children, Nellie, wife of James 
Tingley, of Visalia ; Charles, and Elmer. 



WILLIAM C. RHODES 

The death of AVilliam C. Rhodes, which occurred in 1888 on the 
frontier between Texas and Mexico, removed from his vicinity one of 
the oldest and most honored pioneers of California. He was born 
in March, 1817, in Knox county, east Tennessee. From his native 
state he went to Texas in 1847, and in 1857 made his way overland 
to California by the southern route, starting with a band of cattle 
which were eventually run off by Indians. At the Platte river it 
was necessary to block up the beds in the wagons to keep them out 
of the water in crossing, and a box floated off with three children 
and their mother in it. About this time Mr. Rhodes saw a Mexican 
amputate an arm of a man whose life was thought to be in danger 
from a gunshot wound, he having been accidentally shot while unload- 
ing bedding from his wagon. Mr. Rhodes made his home in San 
Bernardino three years, returning to Tennessee at the end of the 
first year via the Isthmus to bring back more stock. At Carson City 
he left his stock for the winter in care of the Plouston brothers, but 
the animals all died before spring. For a time after his arrival in 
1860 at Tulare county he engaged in farming and later was in the 
sheep business on laud where he had settled east of Visalia, and 
which was his home for years. Subsequently he moved south of Por- 
terville and remained there imtil some time before his death.* His 
widow, who Iiefore her marriage was Sarah Rebecca Douglas, sur- 
vives at the present age of eighty-four. They were the ]iarents of 
twelve children; Nancy, now deceased; Thomas; John; Harriet, Mrs. 
J. L. Johnson; Julia, Mrs. A. Scruggs; Ann Hazleton, Mrs. C. Har- 
jier; William R. ; Tennessee 11, Mrs. S. Fay; Martha E., Mrs. E. 
ilalbert ; Samuel S. ; Hugh, deceased ; and Ora, Mrs. G. Rolibins. 
Tluimas married Sarah Fly and they have several children. John 
married Mrs. Mary Tewksberry and they have five children. Harriet 
married J. L. Johnson and has three children. Julia became the wife 
of Thomas Turner and they bad one child; by her marriage with 
Alba Scruggs she had nine children. Ann Hazleton married Charles 
Harper and bore him eight children. William R. married Miss Lou 



576 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Mefford and has six living children. Tennessee B. became Mrs. 
Spencer Fay and has two children. Martha E. married Edward 
Halbert and they have four children. Sanuiel S. married Mary A. 
Garrison. Ora is Mrs. George Bobbins. 

As a iiioneer Mr. Rhodes won great honor. Fraternally he 
affiliated with the Masonic order. In his politics he was a Democrat 
and as a citizen he was helpfully interested. 



WILLIAM UNGER 

In Petalmiia, Sonoma county, a place made famous by General 
Vallejo, whose old adobe will live long in history, William Unger, 
who now lives near Orosi in Stokes valley, was born January 3, 1869. 
a son of Frederick and Dora (Jantzen) Unger. His parents, natives 
of Germany, came to New York City and from there sailed for Cali- 
fornia by way of Panama in 1849. Arrived within the present terri- 
tory of the Golden State, they lived in Sonoma, Santa Clara and 
Solano counties successively. In 1880 they settled at Selma, Fresno 
county, and that remained the family home thereafter. For a time 
Mr. Unger mined and later he worked for the United States govern- 
ment at $4 a day. In the old mining days he one day picked up a 
gold nugget which was of considerable value. He died in 1902, his 
wife in 1904. 

It is now thirty-three years since William Unger came to Fresno 
county, where he remained until 1904, buying and improving three 
fine homes, one after the other. From there he came to Stokes valley, 
where he bovaght one hundred acres of land. He has sixty-five thou- 
sand citrus trees and is building up a nursery business and improv- 
ing his land. His place is well improved and is well provided with 
modern irrigation facilities, having a pumping capacity of five inches. 
He was the fii-st to put in a well and pumping plant here, and has 
over thirty inches of water from the plant installed in 1912. His 
twelve acres of nursery stock has attracted much attention and he 
intends soon to plant one hundred acres of oranges and limes. His 
farm has been made entirely from raw land and as now advanced is 
one of the best in the vicinity. Since Mr. Unger came to the valley 
many colonists have followed him and $600,000 worth of land has 
been sold there, all of which amply demonstrates the wisdom of liis 
choice, as he has shown the possibilities of this section of the country 
for growing citrus fruit. 

In Fresno county Mr. Unger married Miss Ada E. De La Grange, 
and they have three children. Bertha, Elwood F. and Velora. Bertha 
has graduated from the graimnar school and Elwood F. is a student. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 577 

The members of this familj^ are popular with all who know them. 
Mr. Unger is a Republican in his politics, and is actively interested in 
all public affairs. 



HOMER DAILEY WOODARD 

A successful and greatly lamented farmer and stockman who 
before his death was a prominent representative citizen of Tulare 
county was Homer Dailey Woodard, who was born November 22, 
1850, and died in 1908. His native place was Waukesha, Wis., and he 
was a son of Myron Woodard, who was born near Rochester, N. Y., 
June 9, 1819. The family of Woodard had been prominent there 
during several generations. William Williams, a signer of the 
Declaration of Independence, was an ancestor of Myron Woodard 
in the maternal line and Mr. Woodard 's father saw service as a sol- 
dier in the Revolutionary war, and served under General Scott in the 
war of 1812. Myron Woodard was an early settler in Waukesha, 
Wis., where he cleared a farm and assisted to build up the best in- 
terests of his community. In 1854 he crossed the plains with the 
Hawkins boys, driving cattle, and became a gold miner in California. 
He went back in 1857, spent a year in Wisconsin and brought his 
family to Knights Ferry, San Joaquin county, making the trip by 
way of the Isthmus of Panama. Until 1862 he was again a miner, 
and then he engaged in farming and wool growing in the Washoe 
valley, Nevada. Returning to California in 1867, he spent three 
months in Linden, San Joaquin county, then again took to mining, 
this time at Columbia, Tuolumne county. In 1870 he went to Badger, 
on the Mill road, where he organized a school district and established 
a postoffice of which he was the first postmaster. There he farmed, 
raised stock and conducted a hotel until he retired from active life 
and made his home with his son. Homer Dailey Woodard, with whom 
he lived until in 1886, when he died, aged sixty-seven years. His 
political and religious attitude will be understood when it is stated 
that he was a Republican and a member of the Methodist Episcopal 
church. He married Miss Eunisa Dailey, a native of Rochester, 
N. Y., born June 8, 1822. After her husband's death she sold the 
Badger ])ro]ierty and ]i\'ed on the Woodard farm in the Townsend 
district until her death, October 4, 1899, aged seventy-seven years 
She left four children: Marvin W., in Tehama county; Melvin C, a 
farmer in Tulare county; Homer Dailey, and H. P., a railroad man 
of Arizona. 

In the district schools in California and Nevada Homer Dailey 
Woodard acquired such education as was available to him, and when 



578 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

be was twenty he became a brakemaii ou tlie Southern Pacific railroad 
between Fresno and Sacramento. After three years of such work 
he turned to farming and stockraising. In the fall of 1876 he home- 
steaded a lumdred and sixty acres in section two, township seven- 
teen and range twenty-six, a site that later became known as his home 
stead. He bought other land from time to time until he owned six- 
teen hundred acres here, fifteen hundred acres in the foothills, a 
hundred and sixty acres near Tulare and another one hundred and 
sixty acre tract in Kings coimty, all of which he devoted to stock- 
raising and general farming, with such success that he was recog- 
nized as one of the leading farmers in this part of the state. His 
sons, Chester H. and Myron F. Woodard, are partners with their 
mother in the old home ranch. They sold out their cattle interests 
in the mountains and now own three hundred and ninety acres and 
are renting two hundred acres more. They have a dairy of twenty- 
five cows and have two hundred Poland China hogs. Fifty acres are 
planted to alfalfa, seventy to Eg^i:)tian corn and one hundred and 
fifty acres to barley. 

Mr. Woodard's marriage in Tulare county. May 24, 1876, united 
him to Susie F. Boork, who was born near CarroUton, Ark. She 
was a daughter of Thomas Eoork, a Tennesseean by birth, who came 
by the southern overland route to California in 1859, he and his 
family constituting a part of a large immigrant train. He stopped 
near Visalia for a while and later became a pioneer in the Cricket- 
ville neighborhood, where he farmed during the remainder of his life. 
His wife, formerly Miss Mary Daniel, was born in South Carolina, 
daughter of Abner Daniel, who died there. She died in Fresno 
county in 1889. Of her thirteen children eleven grew to maturity 
and five were living in 1912. Mrs. Woodard was educated at the 
Visalia Seminary and taught school five years in Tulare county. She 
bore her husband six children: Flora, a graduate of the San Jose 
State Normal school, and formerly a teacher in the public schools 
of California, married H. Swank and leaves near Visalia; Orvis, who 
was educated at the Pacific Biisiness college, San Jose, and at the 
Kings Conservatory of Music, married Viola Smith in 1911, and they 
have a daughter, Mildred; Myron F. married in 1906 Alice Fudge 
and they have a son. Homer D. ; Chester H. married Ethel Elster in 
1911, and they have a daughter, Dorris; Hazel and Myrtle are mem- 
bers of their mother's household. Hazel is now teaching the Chat- 
ham school and Myrtle is a student, being a senior in the State Nor- 
mal at Fresno. 

Fraternally Mr. Woodard was associated with the Ancient Order 
of United Workmen and he was a member of the Cumberland Pres- 
byterian church at Antelope, with which his widow affiliates. Politi- 
cally he was a Republican and always took a keen interest in local 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 579 

affairs, serving from time to time as a member of the county central 
committee. He was a member of the first board of directors for the 
Townsend district and long acted either as its clerk or as its trustee, 
and it is worthy of note that the school building of the district stands 
on an acre of ground which he donated as its site. In many ways 
he was useful to the community, always occupying places of trust and 
responsibility. 



MARTIN L. WEIGLE 

Many a man who has come to California hoping to find good 
health has found that and good fortune as well. The experience of 
Martin L. Weigle is evidence in point. Born in York county, Pa., 
in 1846, he obtained some common school education in his native 
state, after which he acquired a practical knowledge of cigar making. 
When he was about eighteen years old he went to Ohio, where he 
worked at his trade until failing health made necessary a change of 
climate. In February, 1890, he came to California and soon after- 
ward bought forty acres of land northwest of Tulare City, and to his 
original holding he has added by purchases from time to time imtil 
he is now the owner of two hundred acres. His farming operations 
have been somewhat extensive and at one time he worked five hun- 
dred acres in the county. At present he has fifteen acres in vine- 
yards, giving special attention to raisin grapes, and ninety-five acres 
in alfalfa, with twenty acres devoted to a peach orchard, in which 
he grows freestones and canning fruit. He has also ten acres of four- 
year-old peach trees which in 1911 produced fruit amounting to the 
value of $1,700, and twenty acres of young peach orchard not yet 
bearing. Among his possessions is a fine flock of Indian Runner 
ducks. Tliere are on his place several good breeding mares and he 
has raised some fine colts, having recently sold a pair for $450. It 
will be seen that his career in California has been one of increasing 
success, and it should be noticed that this success has been the result 
of careful planning and intelligent labor. To an extent it has de- 
pended also on a good knowledge of crops, climate and market 
peculiarities. In short, Mr. Weigle has made a careful study of 
everytliing that could possibly affect his business and has taken 
advantage of every opening for improvement and })rofit. 

In 1878 Mr. Weigle married Miss Matilda B. Wilson, a native of 
Pennsylvania. Though lie takes an intelligent interest in all impor- 
tant public affairs, lie is not in the usual sense of the phrase a prac- 
tical politician, but he has demonstrated the possession of ]mblic 
interest of the kind that makes him a useful citizen. 



580 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

JOHN BROWN BURNHAM 

The Burnliam family to which John Brown Burnham belongs 
came originally from England and settled in Massachusetts at a very 
early date. They were Pilgrims. Mr. Burnham 's paternal grand- 
mother was born in England and died at Essex, Mass., at the age of 
a hundred and ten years. An interesting record of this family will 
be found in a volume, "Genealogy, Eight Generations of Burnhams," 
by Rosana Angeline Burnham, which was published at Boston, Mass. 

In the old Bay State, in the old town of Essex, John Brown 
Burnham was born July 7, 1838, the third son of a family of seven 
children born to Nathan and Sarah A. (Brown) Burnham, the latter 
of whom was a native of Ipswich. Mass., and was Mr. Burnham's 
second wife. Nathan Burnham was a merchant and stockman. He 
was born at Essex, Mass., where he lived and passed away. 

John B. Burnham was brought up at Essex and at Lawrence, 
where he learned the carpenter's trade, at which he was employed 
until after the outbreak of the Civil war. December 3, 1861, he en- 
listed in Company H, Nineteenth Regiment, Massachusetts Volvmteer 
Infantry. He received his baptism of fire at Yorktown, where he 
for the first time faced the enemy in an engagement. He fought 
later at West Point and Fair Oaks, Malvern Hill, and in intermediate 
engagements, and at Malvern Hill was taken prisoner. At one time, 
through a blunder, he came near shooting General McClellan, and 
while he was held at Richmond he liad a memorable talk with Gen. 
T. J. ("Stonewall") Jackson. He was near the spot where Gen. 
Albert Sidney Johnston fell, when that brave Confederate officer 
yielded up his life for his beloved South. In Richmond he was con- 
fined in Libby Prison eighteen months and had many gruesome ex- 
periences. One of his recollections is of having paid $2.50 in gold for 
a green apple pie for a dAing comrade. After his release he bore rifle 
and knapsack through many a hard-fought fight till 1865. 

At the close of the war Mr. Burnham went liack to Massachu- 
setts, where he remained two years, then went to Wisconsin, intend- 
ing to take up government land. Not finding conditions there to his 
liking, he went to Waterloo, Blackhawk county. Iowa. In 1887 he 
came to Fresno county, Cal., but soon located at Visalia. where he 
worked as a carpenter nineteen years. Eventually he bought thirty- 
seven and a half acres of land, on which he has a sixteen-acre vine- 
yard and a family orchard. He has built a fine house on the place 
and has biiilt and sold four city homes in Visalia. As a citizen he 
is helpful in a public-spirited way to every movement for the general 
good. Politically he affiliates with the Socialists. 

In Iowa Mr. Burnham married Elizabeth Van Derburgh, a native 
of that state, a daughter of Isaac Kelly and Charlotte E. (Gleason) 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 581 

Van Derbnrgh. Her father went to Iowa when a boy, and was mar- 
ried in Dubuque, la., where Mrs. Burnham was born Julj- 25, 1846. 
Her mother died in Cedar county, la., when Mrs. Burnham was in 
her tifth year, leaving her and a little sister, Laura, then in her 
third year. Mr. Van Derburgh married a second time in Iowa and 
by his second marriage became tlie father of three sons and three 
daughters. John B. Burnham and his wife have six children: Sarah 
E., Jessie B., Anna B., Pluma B., John B. B., and David C. Sarah 
E. has married three times. David Carlton was her first husband, 
Oscar Nelson was her second and Frank McCain is her present 
husband. She has two children by her first marriage, four by her 
second and one by her last. Jessie B. is the wife of Hans Larson 
of Forest City, Iowa, and has ten children, three of whom are sons. 
Anna B. married Tilden H. Botts, and has five sons; they live in 
Diuuba. Pluma B. is the wife of O. H. Philbrick, of Oakland, Cal., 
and they have a son and a daughter. John B. B. became the hus- 
band of Emma Castilian and she has borne him a son. David C. 
married Etta Cline, of Dinuba, and they have one child. 



ZENIAS KNIGHT 

A son of James H. and Mary M. (AVorley) Knight and a well- 
known citizen of Tulare county, whose residence is half a mile south- 
east of Monson, Zenais Knight was born in Jones county, Iowa, No- 
vember 16, 1854. In 1860, before he was yet six years old, he came 
as an emigrant to California. A train of one hundred wagons left 
Wyoming. Iowa, and at Baker, Idaho, was divided into two trains, 
one of which, consisting of thirty to forty wagons, started for Oregon, 
while the other came on to California. Of the Oregon party an aunt 
of Mr. Knight was a member. Indians at that time were very trou- 
blesome and they attacked the train, killing most of the emigrants, 
appropriating the stock and burning the wagons. The lady men- 
tioned was one of those who esca]3ed and it was not until four or five 
years afterwards that she was enabled to inform her California 
friends of the fate that had overtaken the train. The journey to 
California was made by way of Omaha and Lone Tree, Neb., up the 
Platte River valley, by Salt Lake and down the sink of the Humboldt 
to Hangtown, where the party rested for a few days. The Oregon 
party consisted of about seventy-five individuals, the California party 
of about one Inmdred and seventy-five. 

The Knights located in Green River valley, after a short stop at 
Sacramento and took up one hundred and sixty acres of railroad 
grant land which they had later to abandon. The father lived out 



582 TULARE AND KIXGS COUNTIES 

his days in California; the mother is living in Merced county. 
Zenias Knight's early days were passed as a pioneer in a new and 
undeveloped country. "Work was plentiful and educational advan- 
tages few, but by reading, study and observation he became well 
informed. He married, at Hanford, Miss Sarah E. Halford, who 
was born in California, and they have had seven children: Warren, 
Walter, Laura, Alice, Wallace, Harvey and Zenias. Alice married 
Jacob Christen and had a son named Christopher. They live at 
Dinuba. Warren, a resident of Bakersfield, married Elizabeth 
Worthley. 

After his marriage for a time Mr. Knight lived in Merced 
county. From there he moved to eastern Oregon, whence after 
seven years he came back to California and located in Tulare county. 
He bought sixty acres of land in 1904 which he has since developed 
into a fine fruit ranch, giving attention at the same time to stock. He 
has eight acres of peaches five years old and from twelve acres 
of his land he secured three cuttings of alfalfa in 1911. His stock 
consists of eight head and he has ten good hogs. 

When Mr. Knight first came to this county there was not a 
house between Visalia and Fresno, and he saw herds of from five 
hundred to seven hundred antelope and many elk, while bear were 
numerous in the swamps. The whole country was a vast unde- 
veloped plain. He was acquainted as boy and man with many 
pioneers and one man of note among several he knew was Evans 
of doubtful fame. In 1867 and 1868, then only a big boy, Mr. Knight 
freighted between Stockton and Bakersfield, often visiting Sacra- 
mento, hauling mill stutf. He recollects that on one occasion the 
transportation charges on a steam boiler amounted to $.50 more than 
the original cost of the boiler at Sacramento. Those were the days 
of primitive things in California. In the later development of this 
part of the state Mr. Knight has manfully borne his part. Politically 
he is a Republican. He formerly had membership with the Baptist 
church. In every relation of life he has been public-spiritedly 
helpfiil to those with whom he has been brought in contact. 



GILBERT M. L. DEAN 

At Clarksville, Red River county, Texas, Gilbert M. L. Dean 
was born November 11, 18.39. In 18.50 he came with his parents 
overland to California by the southern route, reaching Visalia by 
way of Fort Yuma. He was the son of Lteyi and Letitia (Paten) 
Dean, natives of Tennessee, who had been pioneers in Red River 
county, Texas, in 1836. The party was in charge of Captain Bailey 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 583 

and Levi Dean would appear to have been second in command. 
They were often menaced by Ajiache Indians, from whom they were 
successful in concealin.n- the knowledge of their numerical strength, 
sometimes camping for the night in stockades well guarded on all 
sides. Indians claiming to want to buy tobacco or oxen to be killed 
for beef, sought entrance to their stronghold but were excluded 
on one pretext or another. Nine months was consumed in making 
the trip, for the jiarty often withdrew to one side of the trail to rest 
their stock and hunt. They lirought one hundred cows and eighteen 
yoke of oxen. At this time a span of mares and a carriage would 
be a small ]>rice to jiay for one hundred cows, but such a purchase 
was made on that basis by these immigrants in 1850. The i^arty, 
consisting of thirty-two men in charge of the same numl)er of 
wagons, arrived at Visalia just before Christmas of that year and 
Mr. Dean soon located on the Jacob Brus ranch up the creek. His 
family consisted of himself, his wife and their eight children, the 
latter being Anna N., Martha J., Helen, Mary A., Henrietta, George 
W., Gilbert M. L. and Albert L. Anna N. married Robert Huston, 
whom she bore six children and with whom she went back to Texas. 
Martha J. became the wife of Robert Hamlington and they had live 
children. Mary A. married Claiborne Dunn and bore him two 
children. Henrietta became Mrs. John Baker and had two daugh- 
ters. George W. is married and has two sons and a daughter. 

Gilbert M. L. married Laura E. Shaw, and following are the 
names of their eight children: Levi, Letitia A., John IL, Laura B., 
Martha J., James S., Mary A. and Jesse L. Levi married Adeline 
Filey, who bore him two sons. Letitia A. became the wife of Alfred 
"Wooley and had two daughters. John PI. married Martha Filey 
and they were the parents of three children. Laura B. became the 
wife of George Hill and the mother of his three sons and one 
daughter. Martha J. married John Findley and has borne him three 
daughters and a son. Mary A. married George T. Seamunds. Jesse 
L. took for his wife May Downing and they have a son. Mr. Dean 
has sixteen grandchildren and one of his granddaughters is married. 

For several years Mr. Dean lived near Visalia, where he carried 
on an extensive stock business and raised corn and vegetables. He 
remembers when he thought he was doing well to sell one hundred 
pounds of shelled corn for seventy-five cents. He was for a time 
engaged in freighting from Stockton and had a government con- 
tract to deliver supplies for soldiers at Fort Independence. He voted 
at the first election in the county, casting his l)allot for Lincoln with 
his father, under an oak tree in the open. He rememl)ers well 
when the coimty seat was changed. He herded stock quite exten- 
sively and sold many cattle at the mines in California and Nevada 
and was for a time in business in Visalia. In 1867 he homesteaded 



584 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

land in the county, which later he sold in order to lease a ranch 
of nine hundred acres for stock raising purposes. He keeps an 
average of two hundred head of cattle and horses and sufficient 
number of hogs for his own use. 

Mr. Dean's experiences in Tulare county cover the period of 
much of its development. He has seen laud which was formerly 
worth only $1.25 an acre sold for $5 to $20 an acre and other lands 
at much higher prices at a corresponding increase in value. During 
his early years here he hunted a good deal, killing many deer and 
bear. He has seen as many as two hundred and fifty deer in a 
single winter and more than one hundred bear, sometimes in groups 
of eight or ten. At one time he shot a bear which had come to the 
mill at Visalia for water. He killed also many antelope and saw 
mmierous elk. For a time his association with Indians was rather 
intimate and they often called upon him for advice in their rela- 
tions with their white neighbors. At one time they counselled with 
him as to whether they should give a war dance or peace dance at 
Isham. His knowledge of Spanish and of Indian tongues made him 
useful in this capacity. He has been school trustee of the Isham 
Valley school fourteen years. In politics he is a Democrat and as a 
citizen he is markedly public-spirited. Mrs. Dean passed away in 
February, 1911, after forty-nine years of wedded happiness. 



FRED GILL 

For many years Iowa has attracted settlers from the east and 
distributed them through the southwest and the Pacific coast country, 
and Tulare county has profited because of this fact. Fred Gill was 
born in Iowa in 1869 and when he was five years old was brought by 
liis father to California, and his education was acquired in the pub- 
lic schools at Exeter. He grew up in the stock business and his 
earliest recollection is of hundreds of cattle and hogs ranging on 
the plains in sight of his father's house. In fact, he never turned 
his hand to work of any other kind. In 1897 he married Miss Car- 
rie Hickman, a native daughter of California, who bore him three 
children. Roy, now sixteen years old, is a student in the grammar 
school, and Emmett and Adolph. aged thirteen and eight years re- 
spectively, are students in the public school. 

In Tulare county Mr. Gill and his brother are recognized as 
leaders among stockdealers. They own forty thousand acres of land, 
mostly devoted to grazing, keep an average of four thousand head 
of cattle, and in 1912 their sales reached three thousand head. Mr. 
Gill's whole active life has been given to the raising of horses, cat- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 585 

tie and hogs, in which business he has been peculiarly successful, 
having made all that he possesses practicall)- within the last fourteen 
years. He has never affiliated with any secret or fraternal order, 
nor has he ever held a political office, but he performs his duties as 
a citizen in a public-spirited way that makes him valuable to the 
community. His father was a native of Iowa and a man of ability 
and considerable success, who passed away in 1910, aged seventy- 
three years. His mother is living in Porterville. Mrs. Gill's mother 
is dead, but her father survives, and is an honored citizen of Tulare 
countv. 



JOEL W. WILLIAMS 

An honored pioneer who has passed away within a comparatively 
recent time was Joel W. Williams, a native of Missouri, born in 1841, 
who came overland to California in 1857, when he was about sixteen 
years old, making the journey with ox-teams and having in his 
possession at his arrival a cash capital of fifteen cents and no more. 
Locating in Sacramento, he soon found employment stringing tele- 
graph wires on a line then under construction between that town 
and Reno, Nev. Later he was long in the employment of railroad 
comjianies as a foreman, and afterward for fifteen years he worked 
in the wiring department of telegraph installation and repairs, sav- 
ing money with which he started in the sheep business in Fresno 
and Tulare counties, with which he busied himself profitably until 
1883. In 1881 he bought the Joel W. Williams ranch of one hundred 
and sixty acres, a mile and a half northeast of Lemoore, where in 
1886 and 1887 he planted forty acres to vineyard. He devoted him- 
self principally, however, to the breeding of fine horses, making a 
specialty of standard bred animals. Bay Rose, a stallion of his 
raising, was sold when six years old to the Queen of Guatemala. 
For many years he was successful in his chosen line and was widely 
recognized as a leading stock-raiser of Central California. 

In his religious i^reference Mr. Williams was a Presbyterian. 
He was a charter member of Lemoore lodge No. 225, F. & A. M. In 
1882 he married Miss Christie E. Edmonds, of Kirksville, Mo., who 
bore him a daughter, Iva W., who is the wife of William J. Bryans, 
of Lemoore. He passed his declining years on his ranch and died 
December 14, 1907. He is survived by his widow and the daughter 
mentioned, and the inevitalile termination of his long and useful 
career was sincerely regretted by many admiring friends, who dur- 
ing their many years com]ianionship with him had had the daily 
encouragement and consolation of his loyal and warm hearted friend- 
ship. 



*&^ 



586 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

JESSE W. HAERIS 

In that grand old midway state, Missouri, in the historic old 
county of St. Clair, Jesse W. Harris, now a well-known contractor 
and man of affairs at Corcoran, Kings county, Cal., was born Feb- 
ruary 24, 1869. When he was five years old he was taken to Union 
City, Ind. He was educated in public schools in that state and at 
the State Normal school at Winchester, Ind. One of the conditions 
under which some students are admitted to State Normal schools 
is that they shall teach for a certain time after their graduation. 
Mr. Harris devoted seven years to that work and won great suc- 
cess as an educator. In 1907 he came to California and stopped for 
a short time in Los Angeles, then came to Corcoran to assist in 
the erection of a sugar factory which is one of the conspicuous 
buildings of that town. Eventually he went into contracting and 
building, in connection with which he later took up real estate, in 
both fields of endeavor being satisfactorily successful. In all direc- 
tions may be seen buildings which attest his mechanical skill and his 
business ability, and he has turned some of the notable local land 
deals of the last few years. 

On November 6, 1894. Mr. Harris married Miss India Peacock, 
who was born in Indiana, June 14, 1876. Fraternally he affiliates 
with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and with the Knights 
of the Golden Eagle. As a citizen he is public-spirited to a degree 
that makes him dependably helpful in any emergency demanding 
action for the good of the community. He is filling the office of 
justice of the peace with the highest honor and integrity and to the 
general satisfaction of the people of the town, who have learned 
to respect and abide by his judgment and to seek his friendly advice 
in the private settlement of many of their difficulties. 



GEORGE T. FARMER 

Born at Hamburg, Fremont county, la., January 14, 1859, George 
T. Farmer was a son of John M. and Martha J. (Utterback) Farmer. 
Attending school until he was sixteen he then came to (."aliforuia, 
arriving in what is now Kings county, on March 11, 1875. On April 
17, following, he was employed in the construction of the Peo- 
ple's ditch, but a little later he was heading grain on the present 
site of Lemoore, and in the fall of that year he was hauling lumber. 
Later, in association with his uncle, William T. Farmer, he was 
raising wheat and buying hogs, and their first harvest was the grain 
produced on one hundred and sixty acres of land, situated one 
and a half miles south of his present home. In the fall of 1879 he 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 587 

married and removed with his bride to Iowa, but came back to 
Kings county in 1880, and in the fall of 1881 moved to Yolo county, 
where he worked on road construction. He later came to Kings, 
then Tulare county, and in 1888 went to Siskiyou, where he served 
as justice of the peace ■ of Lake township. It was in 1891 that he 
moved to his present locality, and in 1896 moved to his present 
ranch, which he bought January 19, 1903. He has been very suc- 
cessful here and is now extensively engaged in stockraising and 
dairying, giving attention to thoroughbred cattle, including Guernsej^ 
dairy cattle, and is considered one of the leading breeders of his 
class in the county. 

Fraternally Mr. Farmer affiliates with the Sons of Veterans 
and the Woodmen of the World. Taking a public-spirited interest in 
affairs of the community, he has filled several local offices. For eight 
years he was deputy assessor of Kings county, and for seventeen 
years he has been a school trustee, including seven years as trustee 
of the Hanford high school, during two years of which he was presi- 
dent of the school board. He has served also as his party represen- 
tative in the county central committee of Tulare and Kings counties. 

On November 11, 1879, Mr. Farmer married Miss Gertrude Bug- 
gies, a native of Woodland, Yolo county, born September 1.3, 1858, 
one of the first white girls born in that county, and a daughter of 
Lyman B. and Martha Ann (Dexter) Ruggles. They have eight 
children: Leta, who married Dr. Cothran, of San Jose; Milton T., 
who is at Berkeley; Lyman D., who is now filling the office of 
sheriff of Kings county ; Ethel, a teacher in the Hanford grammar 
school; Theodore, who is on the home farm, and Clarence and Paul, 
who are in the high school, and Lucile, in the grammar school. 



CHARLES 0. GILL 

No ranchman in the Porterville district of Tulare county is more 
widely or more favorably known than C. 0. Gill, who lives seven 
miles and a half north of that city. Born in Oliio, August 15, 1863, 
he was taken to Iowa and tliere remained till he was ten years old, 
then was brought by his parents to California. The family located 
in Tulare county, aiid Jiere the lioy was sent to school at the Yokohl 
valley school liousc, where, under the tutelage of tlie teachers there 
employed, he acquired a pi'actical education which has been of great 
benefit to him in his active life as a stockman and man of affairs. 

The first work to which Mr. Gill gave atteution was among his 
father's stock, and when he was twenty he was raising cattle on his 
own account, and from that day to this his energies have lieen di- 
rected to the advancement of tliis one kind of business. He has 



588 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

found this concentration profitable. In 1888 he homesteaded one 
hundred and sixty acres of public land, and since then has bought 
tracts, from time to time, till he now has twelve thousand acres, 
all of which is devoted to stockraising. He keeps on hand about 
six hundred head of cattle and from fifteen to twenty horses. His 
homestead is fitted up with all appliances and improvements essential 
to a successful enterprise in his line. 

In 1887 Mr. Gill married Miss Clemmie Anderson, a native 
daughter, whose father, Garland Anderson, came to California in 
1851, among the pioneers. They have two children, Maurice, born in 
1889, and Ada, born in October, 1910. The son was educated in the 
Frazier school and is assisting his father in his business affairs. 

In the city markets, in which Mr. Gill always sells his cattle 
and hogs, he is popular and highly respected because of his fair 
and square business methods. In all of the relations of life he is 
friendly and helpful and as a citizen he has many times demon- 
strated his public spirit. 



JAMES MUNEOE BLAKELEY 

Indiana has sent to California many men and women who liave 
won honored place in the citizenship of the Golden State. Among 
those who have lived and prospered in the vicinity of Hanford, 
Kings county, mention should be made of James Munroe Blakeley. 
Mr. Blakeley was born in 1837 and was reared and educated in his 
native state. In 1857, when he was about twenty years old, he 
settled in Iowa, where he farmed successfully for a quarter of a 
century. He married there, in 1861, Miss Mary A. Thomas, like 
himself a native of Indiana, who had gone to Iowa with her parents, 
and they have had eight children : Eva married Harvey Burns ; Olive 
May was the wife of H. Clawson; A. W. lives at Riverside; Frank 
is a citizen of Lemoore; Arthur E. is well known in Kings county; 
Mary is the wife of David Porter of Hanford; Grace, who is Mrs. 
Charles Moss, lives in Kings county, and Bessie married John Bow- 
den and lives in Philadelphia, Pa. 

In 1882 Mr. Blakeley came with his family from Iowa to Grange- 
ville, Tulare county, Cal. During the first two years of his residence 
here he farmed leaSed land, but eventually he bought land on the 
lake. He sold that property soon, however, and bought a farm on 
the Mussel slough, and there farmed for some years, then selling 
the place in order to buy another near Armona. In 1904 he secured 
by a trade five acres of land adjoining the northwest corner of the 
city of Hanford, which he has developed into a profitable orchard 
and which has since x>rovided him an attractive home. As a farmer. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 589 

Mr. Blakeley has been successful witbiu the limits of his operations, 
and as a citizen he has shown a public spirit which has won him 
the regard of all who know him. He is especially interested in 
education, and wherever he has lived he has done his utmost for the 
advancement of the schools in his vicinity. 



HENRY ALDEN CRANE 

The career of Henry Alden Crane of the Paddock district, 
southwest of Hanford, Kings county, Cal., lias been that of a self- 
made man, who, by his sterling qualities, has profited by his op- 
portunities and done, directly and indirectly, a good deal for the 
benefit of his community. Formerly one of the leading apiarists of 
Central California, he is now making a success in the production of 
fruit and stock. Mr. Crane is a native of Kansas and was born 
September 2, 1872, son of 0. Crane, who came from the Sunflower 
State to California in 1874, when Henry A. was about two years 
old, and. lived in Yolo county until 1877: Then the Crane family 
moved to Tulare county, locating eight miles southwest of Hanford, 
in what is now Kings county, and the elder Crane took up railroad 
land which he later lost through litigation. While he occupied the 
property he farmed it successfully and took an active interest in 
the development of the district. He was a factor in securing the 
construction of a ditch through his part of the county and in bring- 
ing about the utilization of Mussel slough as a source of irrigation. 
He passed away May 7, 1909, after a life of industry and useful- 
ness. 

In the neighborliood of his present home Henry Alden Crane was 
reared and educated, and to the pulilic schools he gives credit for 
his literary start in life. His business beginning was as an apiarist 
in the district between Hanford and Cross creek, and he soon ex- 
tended his operations until he had at one time four hundred colonies 
of bees. In 1900 he bought eighty acres in the heart of the Paddock 
district, eight miles southwest of Hanford, on which there was then 
twelve acres of old vineyard, but no other improvements. He has 
developed the place into a modern home ranch, with good and 
ample buildings and up-to-date appliances and appointments. He 
now has twenty-nine acres of his land in vineyard, six acres in peaches 
and the balance in alfalfa. He gives considerable attention to the 
breeding of horses, cattle and hogs, which bring a high price in the 
market. In 1911 he bought forty acres of the Jacobs tract, about 
twelve miles southwest of Hanford, which he is improving and ex- 
pects soon to devote almost entirely to alfalfa. 

In April, 1902, Mr. Crane married Winifred Battenfeld, of Kings 



590 TULAKE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

county, and they have a son, William Dale Crane. Mr. Crane takes 
a public-spirited interest in the economic and political affairs of his 
county, state and nation, and his solicitude for the imi3rovement of 
the public schools in his vicinity caused him to accept the office of 
trustee of the Paddock school district, which he is filling with much 
abilitv and credit. 



WILLIAM BURGAN CLAEK 

One of the many self-made men of Kings county, Cal., who are 
deserving of an especial place in this work, by reason of their perse- 
verance in the face of difficulty and their ultimate worthy achieve- 
ment, is William B. Clark, whose farm property is located six miles 
south of Hanford. Born October 21, 1865, he made a beginning in 
active life in 1883, when he was about eighteen years old, by work- 
ing on ranches in his neighborhood. Later he rented land and 
farmed on his own account till 1898, when he went to Alaska, being 
one of those who made the first great rush for the Klondike. Per- 
haps he had inherited some of the venturesome spirit of his father, 
who had been a pioneer miner in California. After four years of 
hard work and indifferent success, the young man came back to 
Kings county and soon afterward bought his present home ranch 
of eighty acres, on which he has put all improvements. He devotes 
himself to stockraising, dairying and the breeding of hogs and has 
twenty acres of his homestead in alfalfa. In 1907 he bought one 
hundred and twenty acres near Guernsey and in 1911 thirty-five acres 
adjoining that purchase, which laud he uses for stock. 

The mother of William B. Clark is Mrs. Amanda B. Clark, a 
daughter of William Burgan. She was born in Ohio, November 11, 
18.33, and when she was fifteen years old was taken by her father to 
Wisconsin, where she lived till 1854, coming then to California. She 
was married in January that year to Charles W. Clark, who was 
born September 13, 1822, and they came overland to Tuolumne county, 
Cal., where Mr. Clark mined several years, finding some gold, but 
experiencing much disappointment. In 1866 he was made super- 
intendent of the Pittsburg coal mine in Contra Costa county, and 
there he labored till in the spring of 1873, when he came to Tulare 
county and boiight two thousand acres of land on Lake Tulare, nine 
miles south of Hanford, at $2.50 an acre, and engaged in stock and 
cattle raising and in the growing of alfalfa. It is generally con- 
ceded that he had the first alfalfa in Kings county. He was one of 
the promoters and builders of the Lakeside ditch and was its prin- 
cipal manager for several years. Later, he took up grain and sheej), 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 591 

and became one of the most extensive sheep men in the county. He 
had bought a flock which his brother in Fresno county looked after 
for him and which he brought with him to this county, and that 
was the necleus of .is later large property of this kind. In time he 
took up a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres adjoining his 
land and bought three hundred acres of mountain land in Fresno 
county. In 1880 the reverses of several successive dry years cul- 
minated in his loss of his property, and he rented land at Lambert's 
Grove, six miles east of Hanford, and resumed sheep raising, also 
doing a little farming. In 1885 he and his family emigrated to 
Woodville, Jackson county. Ore., where he bought a small ranch, 
put in an orchard and engaged in merchandising. For four years 
they remained there, and then came back to a ranch on the plains, 
near their old place. Mr. Clark died at the home of his son. May 
13, 1894. Mrs. Clark lived with her son Frank at Tulare till 1902, 
since when she has been a member of the household of her son 
William B. She bore her husband six children: Frank B., born 
January 28, 1855, lives in Tulare. Albert, born December 3, 1855, 
died April 22, 1859. Ida B., born May 2, 1860, died November 16, 
1862. Grant U., born October 1, 1863, lives near Hanford. Wil- 
liam B. was next in order of birth. Gracie G., born January 18, 1868, 
died April 19, 1878. 

Not only is William B. Clark a well-informed and resourceful 
rancher and stockman, but he is as well a useful and patriotic citi- 
zen, a promoter of all good for the public and a firm believer in the 
ultimate great destiny of California and of America. 



LOUIS DECKER 

Prominent and active in the industrial and civic world of Le- 
moore is Louis Decker, born at Ligonier, Ind., January 14, 1866. 
When four years old he was taken by his parents to Alexander, Nebr., 
where he lived until 1886, when in company with Charles Russell, 
also of Alexander, he came to Lemoore, where he has attained to 
prominence in many ways and become one of its well-known mer- 
chants. Mr. Decker was erajiloyed five years as a clerk in the store 
of M. Lovelace, then bought a fruit farm at Grangeville on which 
he lived during the ensuing five years. In 1896 he became a clerk 
in Kutner-Goldstein's store at Hanford, and after three years' em- 
ployment there he went to the oil fields in Kern county and put in 
two years in the development of oil lands. After that for some 
time he was a successful contractor and builder in San Francisco. 
Coming back to Lemoore in 1901, he a second time entered the employ 
of Mr. Lovelace with whom he remained four vears until he became 



592 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

bookkeoptM- of the Bauk of Lemoore, and tliis positiou he filled uutil 
January, 1912, when he resigned it to buy the M. Lovelace store. 
He carries a line of farm implements, agricultural machinery and 
carriages, his specialties including the McCorniick and Buckeye im- 
plements, the California Moline plows and the Studebaker wagons. 
He is part owner and manager of the Lemoore garage, with L. H. 
Byron, who has the agency for the country round Lemoore and 
Coalinga for the Ford motor vehicles and does a general garage and 
rejiair business. His implement building is constructed of corrugated 
iron and occupies a ground space of 100x150 feet, and his garage, of 
the same material, occupies a ground space of 75x150 feet. The 
latter has been enlarged three times. The original garage was 75x75 
feet in area; twenty-five feet was added to its length and later it 
was brought up to its present capacity. Having recently built a 
new residence on Lemoore avenue, Mr. Decker is now the owner 
of- two houses in the city. He has in many ways demonstrated his 
public spirit and has served as city clerk of Lemoore, a term as city 
clerk by appointment, and a term in the same office by election. In 
1893, at tlie first election after the organization of Kings county, 
he was a candidate for coimty recorder against F. M. Fraser and 
was defeated by only five votes. He is secretary of the Odd Fel- 
lows' Hall association and is a Past Grand of the local lodge of the 
Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a past clerk of the Lemoore 
organization of the Woodmen of the "World, and in 1891 was a 
delegate to the High Court of the Independent Order of Foresters 
lield at Los Angeles. 

On May 3, 1911, Mr. Decker married Maria Westerhoff, of Alex- 
ander, Nebr., a daughter of William Westerliotf, who was a pioneer 
in that state. 



JAMES E. DUNLAP 

An extensive land owner and cattle dealer of Tulare county and 
one who has figured prominently in business affairs here is James 
Early Dunlap. His father, Johu Dunlap, was a native of Missouri 
and a pioneer in Texas and in California, and met his death on the 
San Bernardino fair grounds by being struck by a sulky*. His wife, 
a native of Texas, died there when James E. was five years old. 

James E. Dunlap was born January 1, 1838, in Washington 
coimty. Tex., and here learned something about books in the public 
schools, and a good deal about handling cattle on the ranges which 
stretched for miles and miles in all directions round about his home. 
When he was in his seventeenth vear he came overland to California 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 593 

with his father and others, and the Dunlaps located in Los Angeles 
county. In 1855 the younger Dunlap made his first visit to Tulare 
county, bringing Texas cattle to Visalia. He had started with about 
thirteen hundred head, but about nine hundred had died by the 
way for want of water. His father came to Tulare county in 
1858 and bought one hundred and sixty acres of land of Mr. Lynn. 
James took up a homestead in Ljim's valley, and he has been a 
land owner in the county ever since, having owned at one time three 
hundred and twenty acres, but never less than one hundred and sixty 
acres. He has been an extensive handler of cattle for the market 
and from time to time has farmed considerable tracts to various 
cro])s. He deeded to the Bald Mountain Mining company a strip off 
the side of his ranch on which the mine of that corporation is 
located. 

On September 2.3, 1860, Mr. Dunlap married Miss Lucy Ellis, a 
native of Texas, who has borne him six children : Thomas is deceased. 
Henry lives near Bakersfield, Cal. ; John's home is at White River, 
Cal. ; William James is well known in Tulare county; Emma mar- 
ried Henry Conner, and Mary is deceased. Mr. Dunlap 's recollec- 
tions of his early experiences in this county are those of a pioneer. 
At this time there are very few others living here who were here 
when he came. He relates that during the time of the Indian 
trouble his father camped near Deer creek; he has himself killed 
many 1)ear and deer within the limits of the county. For some 
time after he came, there were few houses within a radius of many 
miles in any direction from the place of his settlement, the whole 
territory being open country, utilized as cattle ranges. He has pros- 
pered with the community in which he lives, and while he has been 
winning fortune for himself has watched the development of a wil- 
derness country into one of the rich and important counties of a 
great state; and as opportunity has offered he has encouraged and 
aided that development in a public-spirited way that has insured 
him the respect of all who have known him. 



JOHN V. CLEMENTE 

It was across the ocean on the other continent at Pico, in the 
Azores islands, that John V. Clemente was born. May 6. 1864, and 
he now lives a mile north of Hanford, Kings county, Cal., and is a 
successful dairyman and fruit grower. He is a true citizen of America, 
devoted to the best interests of his adopted country and especially 
to those of the community with which he has cast his lot. He re- 
mained on his native isle in a far-away sea until he was eighteen 
vears old, then came to the United States, and direct to California. 



594 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

locating at Pescadero, San Mateo county, where for four years 
he was employed at ranch work. For the five years thereafter he 
worked on ranches in San Luis Obispo county. In 1891 he came 
to Kings county, bought a band of sheep and went into the sheep 
business, to which he devoted himself nine years, having at one time 
a flock of twenty-five hundred. 

In 1901 Mr. Clemente bought one hundred and sixty acres of 
unimproved land, on which he has put fences and buildings and 
which he is now cultivating with success. He has ten acres of vines, 
two acres of orchard and thirty acres of alfalfa, the remainder of 
his tract being given over to pasturage. In connection with this 
business he manages a small dairy. With three associates, he bought 
four hundred and eighty acres of land north of Lemoore, his interest 
in which he sold in 1910. He is a stockholder in the Hanford Mer- 
cantile company and affiliates fraternally with the U. P. E. C. and 
the I. D. E. S. As a citizen he is public-spirited to a degree that 
makes him helpful to every worthy local interest. 

In June, 1903, Mr. Clemente married Maria Garcia, and they 
have three children: Leonard, Elvira and Maria. 



CARLETON JAMES SHANNON 

Prominent as a farmer and dairyman and through his con- 
nection with the Dairymen's Co-operative Creamery association and 
the Farmers' Irrigation Ditch company, Carl James Shannon of 
Tulare is probably as favorably known as any other citizen of Tulare 
couuty. where he has lived since 1889. He was born in Coleborne, 
Ontario, Can., June 9, 1870, the second in a family of four sons 
and one daughter, born to Robert and Deborah (Richardson) Shan- 
non. The parents left Canada in 1891 and came to California, mak- 
ing their home on a farm near Yisalia, where Mr. Shannon died. 
His widow lives at Dinuba. Their son, Carleton J., lived on the 
parental farm in Canada until he was sixteen years old, attending the 
public school near his home. At sixteen he became self-supporting 
and for three years worked at such employiuent as he could find 
in the vicinity of his birthplace. At nineteen he was making only 
fifteen dollars a month and he was not at all satisfied with his 
income. But he saved the little money that he could and in 1889 
reached Tulare county, all traveling expenses paid, with twenty 
dollars in his pocket. Here he began working for one dollar a day. 
He remained with his first employer. J. R. Robinson, a year and 
eight months and then worked two full years for John Frans at 
stockraising. Next he ventured in the field of business on his own 
account, renting the R. H. Stevens ranch near his present farm for 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 595 

five successive years. Returning to the Frans rancli he became Mr. 
Frans's partner in handling stock, and by 1897, through good man- 
agement, acquired enough capital to purchase a farm of one hundred 
and forty acres, which was the nucleus of his present ranch. In 
1900 he bought two hundred and forty acres more and in 1902 an- 
other hundred acres, bringing his holding up to four hundred and 
eighty acres in sections thirty-two and thirty-three, township nine- 
teen, range twenty-five, located five , miles northeast of Tulare. He 
has improved and cultivated the tract until it ranks with the best 
ranches in the couuty. By later purchases he has become the owner 
of fifteen hundred and sixty acres. Forty acres is devoted to peaches, 
one hundred to alfalfa and eighty to vineyards. He has a dairy of 
sixteen Holstein cows, keeps an average of four hundred hogs and 
raises seventy-five beef cattle yearly, and he has also raised some fine 
Percheron colts. In 1911 he planted one hundred and two acres to 
Egyptian corn which yielded thirty-three hundred sacks. He is a 
member of the Dairymen's Co-operative Creamery association and 
president and manager of the Farmers' Irrigation Ditch company, 
which has an eight-mile ditch whose practical length is greatly in- 
creased by many laterals. Besides President Shannon, the officers 
of the company are W. P. Ratliff, secretary, and Bank of Tulare, 
treasurer. Its directors are Carl J. Shannon, P. F. Roche, E. P. 
Foster, Joseph LaMarche and A. W. Church. 

In Fresno, Cal., in 1902, Mr. Shannon married Mrs. Lulu B. 
(Jordan) Smith, born near Visalia, daughter of James B. Jordan. 
By her former marriage Mrs. Shannon had one son, Leslie Smith. 
Mr. and Mrs. Shannon have three children, Gordan, Dorothy and 
Richard. Fraternally Mr. Shannon is an Odd Fellow, affiliating with 
Four Creeks lodge No. 92, of Visalia, and politically he is a stanch 
Democrat. Public-spiritedly he is all that his many admiring friends 
could wish him. 



DANIEL HEADRICK 

It was in Kentucky in 18.32 that Daniel Headrick was ])orn, and 
when a child was taken to Missouri. From there he came to Cali- 
fornia in ISGO with his mother, his father having died previously. 
He had learned the blacksmith's trade, but settling in Butte county, 
he worked there as a farmer for some time and from there went 
to San Joaquin county, where he was both farmer and bhutksmith 
several years, as he was later for ten years in Fresno county. His 
next place of residence was near Kings river, in the vicinity of Han- 
ford, until 1888. He removed from there to Deer creek, thence to 



596 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Tulare, thence to Round valley, thence to Porterville and thence, 
in 1899, again to Tulare, where he remained until his death, 
which occurred November 9, 1909. Wherever he lived he combined 
his two occupations, farming and blacksmithing. 

In 1866 Mr. Headrick married Sarah Palmer, a native of Wis- 
consin, who had been reared in Iowa and was then living at Fresno. 
She bore eleven children, six of whom are living: Leonard Fry, 
George Fry and Delia Fry, who married Ellis Marvin of Hanford, 
Cal. (these three by a former marriage), and Arna, Emory and Ivy 
(by her marriage with Mr. Headrick). Arna is the wife of John 
E. Walker of Tulare, a biographical sketch of whom appears in these 
pages; Emory lives at Porterville; Ivy married S. J. Miller of 
Tulare. 



HENRY JOSEPH BORGMAN 

A leader in the transfer business at Exeter, Tulare county, Cal., 
Henry Joseph Borgman is the owner of considerable property in that 
city and its vicinity. One of the successful men of the town he has 
made his way in the world by his own unaided efforts and is recog- 
nized as one of the prominent self-made men of the county. He was 
born in Kewaunee county, Wis., in 1871, was educated in the public 
schools there and lived there imtil 1902, about the time he attained 
his majority. His father, Max Borgman, a native of Germany, 
landed in New York city April 14, 1865, the day of the assassination 
of President Lincoln. He died in 1894, and his widow, also a native 
of the fatherland, survived until 1907. 

When Mr. Borgman came to California he found employment 
as a laborer and by industry and frugality as well as by good 
business ability, he has made himself the owner of the most ex- 
tensive transfer business in his part of the county. He keeps five 
teams and five men constantly busy. In connection with the enter- 
prise he maintains a large storage warehouse which has been in- 
stalled at considerable expense during the last year. He has bought 
property from time to time until he owns several valuable pieces 
in Exeter and in the country round about. Politically he is a Re- 
publican, and as a citizen he has in many ways demonstrated his 
public spirit, showing a willingness at all times to do anything in 
his power for the community with which he has cast his lot. Fra- 
ternallv he affiliates with the Modern Woodmen and the Woodmen 
of the "World. 

In 1895 Mr. Borgman married Miss Frances Wahl, a native of 
Wisconsin, whose father has passed away, but whose mother is a 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 597 

member of Mr. Borgmau's household. Mr. and Mrs. Borgman have 
eight children: Lena, Eddie, Katie, Mary, Joseph, Clara, Antone 
and Adolph. The first four nioutioned were born in Wisconsin, the 
others are native sons and daughters of California. Lena, Eddie, 
Katie, Mary and Joseph are students in the public school at Ex- 
eter. 



WINFRED D. DEENNEN 

This enterprising and skillful harnessniaker and saddler, whose 
place of business is on North Irwin street, between Sixth and Sev- 
enth streets. Hanford, Kings county, Cal., was born in Kansas, Jan- 
uary 1, 1877, and lived there until he was abovit eight years old. 
Then his father died and his mother brought him to California, lo- 
cating in Hanford, and here he was reared and educated. His first 
emploAnnent was on a ranch, and for some time he divided his labors 
between ranch work and such work as he found in packing houses. 
Eventually he began to learn the harnessmaker's trade with C. S. 
Cunningham of Hanford. Two years later Mr. Cunningham sold 
out to Mr. Uberbacher, for whom the young man worked until Mr. 
Uberbacher died, leaving the business to his widow, who continued 
it till September, 1911, wlien she sold it to Mr. Drennen, who has 
owned and managed it since. He manufactiares harness and sad- 
dles and deals in them and in whips, robes, carriage trimmings and 
harness and leather supplies, besides doing in a workman-like man- 
ner all repairs in his line. 

Fraternally Mr. Drennen affiliates with the Improved Order of 
Red Men, the Foresters of America and the U. P. E. C. In these 
orders as well as in business circles he is justly popular, for he is 
of a friendly and helpful disposition, and as a citizen is public- 
spirited and solicitous for the general welfare of the community. 



JOSEPH BEZERA 

In the Azores, in February, 1866, was born Joseph Bezera, who 
is familiarly known to i)eoi)le around Hanford, Kings county, Cal., 
as Joe Bezera. He was brought up on a farm on his native island 
and remained there until he was sixteen years old, when he emigrated 
to the Sandwich islands, whence he came when he was eighteen years 
old to California, locating at Hanford before the end of 1884. Until 
1893 he worked on farms and sheep ranches, and then he became a 
sheep raiser on his own account, and so successful was he in ac- 



598 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

f-nmnlatins' stock that he came in time to have a flock of seven 
thousand; lie <lisposed of this interest in 1911. Meanwhile, in 1900, 
he had bou^'ht one hundred and fifty-ei.sfht acres of land, a mile 
northwest of the city limits of Hanford. It was nnimproved and he 
huilt fences and barns and a fine residence and otherwise fitted it for 
profitable use. About one-half of the place is in alfalfa and he raises 
much stock. With others he is the owner of an extensive dairy busi- 
ness which is conducted on a rented ranch of six hundred and forty 
acres, near Visalia, and there, too, stock is raised. 

In 1911 Mr. Bezera revisited his native isle to renew acquaint- 
ance with scenes and friends of liis earlier years, and after an ab- 
sence from Hanford of one year and eight months, returned in 1912 
and was gladly welcomed by the many friends he had made in his 
adopted country. He has become known as a man of progress and 
enterprise, who takes an interest deep and generous in the general 
prosperity of the community. Fraternally he affiliates with the I. D. 
E. S. and the U. P. E. C. He married, in 1902, Miss Mary Amelia 
Rogers, who has borne him three daughters and three sons : Lena, 
Mary, Manuel, Jaiues, Joseph, Jr., and Amelia. 



HERBERT ASKIN 

In 1869 Hei'bert Askin was born in Crawford county. Mo., and 
in 1888 he came to California, having in the meantime acquired such 
education as was necessary to fit him for the career of usefulness 
upon which he was about to enter as well as a practical knowledge 
of the plumbing and tinning trades. For three years after he ar- 
rived in California he made his father's instruction available by 
work as a plumber in which he was so successful as to win the appro- 
bation not only of his employers, but of the general public of Fresno. 
From Fresno he went to Hanford, where he remained until January, 
1894, when he came to Visalia and established himself in liusiness 
as a i3h;mber and tinsmith. 

In 1896 Mr. Askin married Miss Louisa Dinely, a daughter of a 
Tulare county pioneer. He was successful almost from the outset 
of his career in Visalia. and in July, 1911, occupied his new build- 
ing on East Main street, which he erected according to his own 
plans and which in actual use has proven to be one of the most 
modern and best equipped structures of its class in this part of the 
state. While doing a general line of tinner's work he makes a 
specialty of water tanks and galvanized iron work. The following 
brief mention of buildings in which he has done the plumbing since 
he came to Visalia will afford an idea of the scope of his enterprise: 
City Hall, addition to the Court House, First National Bank build- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 599 

ing, uew high school, AVashington grammar school, American hotel, 
Boone hotel, new Mt. Whitney Power company building, the Visalia 
club building, the Goldstein block, the Kaweah club building and 
very many of the tine homes erected or remodeled in the city in 
recent years. 

In 1907 Mr. Askin was elected a city trustee of Visalia, in which 
office he served four years. He was especially honored in 1907 by 
being chosen to serve as acting president of the board on the oc- 
casion of the opening of the new city hall. The work of the board of 
trustees during his term of service resulted in many important im- 
provements and the administration of the municipal affairs at tliat 
time has passed into history as one conspicuous for its high busi- 
ness chai-acter. It relieved the city of a debt of $7,000, and in 1911 
turned it over to the new board of trustees with $8,000 in the treas- 
ury. It put through a $4.'),000 bond issue to raise funds for the 
building of the new city hall and the erection of concrete bridges 
over irrigation ditches running through Visalia. It resurfaced all 
the paved streets of the town and laid twenty-nine blocks of new 
pavement. Not the least of its achievements was the putting of the 
Mill creek conduit into Visalia. Of all these measures Mr. Askin 
was a promoter and with the working out of some of the more im- 
portant of them he was jjersonally concerned. During a part of the 
period of the activities of the Visalia Building & Loan association he 
was one of its directors. 



MORGAN J. WELLS 

A residence of over fifty years in California entitles Mr. Wells 
to the name of jiioneer, and as such he has borne a noble ]iart in 
bringing about the improved conditions which we of the present 
day enjoy. He was born in Dixon county, Tenn., June 15, IS'.V.), the 
son of Henry Gilbert and Nancy (Wilson) Wells, liotli also natives of 
that same southern state. Mr. Wells has no knowledge of his native 
state, for he was less than six mouths old when his ])arents re- 
moved from Tennessee and settled in Pope county. Ark. Upon wild 
and unbroken land which the father purchased he imi)rove(l a tine 
farm, carrying on general farming and stockraising for- several 
years. Another removal of the family in 1856 brought them to 
California, ox teams being the motive powei', and here the [larents 
rounded out their useful lives, the father passing away at the age 
of eighty-one years, and Ihe mother when sixty years old. Mrs. 
Wells was the daughter of Adam Wilson, a native of Ireland, who 
after liis immigration to the United States followed farming in Ten- 
nessee. 



600 TULAEE AND KINGS COUXTIES 

Of the seven children born to Henry G. and Nancy (Wilson) 
Wells, Morgan J. Wells was the sixth child and is now the only one 
living. Needless to say that his educational advantages were meagre 
when it is known that his entire boyhood was passed in frontier sur- 
roundings. The school he was privileged to attend was a rude log 
affair with shake roof and slab benches, and he was taught to write 
with a quill pen of the teacher's own manufacture. When he was 
less than twenty years of age he was attacked with the gold fever 
and in the spring of 1852 he formed a company and started with 
ox teams for the Pacific coast. By way of what was known as 
the Cherokee route they went up the Arkansas valley, through Den- 
ver and along the Platte I'iver to Salt Lake, and from there by way 
of Humboldt and Carson City to Tuolumne county, and from there 
to Sonora, six months having been consumed in the journey. After 
a year's experience in mining there Mr. Wells went to old Millerton, 
there combining mining and teaming for about three years, when he 
came to Tulare county and for a number of months thereafter he 
continued freighting, hauling lumber from the mountains with ox 
teams. 

The year after coming to Tulare county, in 1857, Mr. AVells 
was married and settled with his wife on the ranch which they now 
occupy, jBve miles northwest of Visalia. The nucleus of his present 
property was one hundred and sixty acres which he entered from 
the government. The old shake house which at first adorned it gave 
place in time to a more substantial frame house. Year by year im- 
provements have been made upon the property, enhancing its value 
as well as its beauty. Mr. Wells carries on general farming and 
teaming, making a specialty of raising wheat, and he also raises 
cattle and hogs. Of late years he has given some attention to the 
raising of fruit, and now has a fine family orchard, thirty acres alone 
in prunes, which seem to be es]>ecially adapted to this locality. As 
means and opportunity have made it possible Mr. Wells has added to 
his acreage, the home farm now containing two hundred and forty 
acres, besides which he owns what is known as Bone Canyon ranch, 
eleven himdred acres of land fourteen miles northeast of his home 
ranch. The last-mentioned property is devoted almost exclusively 
to grain and stockraising. The Wutchumna canal, in which Mr. 
Wells is financially interested, supplies water to his property. 

Mention has been made of Mr. Wells's marriage. In maidenhood 
his wife was Miss Catherine Fudge, a native of Tennessee, the 
daughter of John B. Fudge, a farmer, who settled as a pioneer 
in California in 1856. Six children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Wells : 
Mary, the wife of L. H. Douglass, died at the age of twenty-three 
years, leaving one child, David Roy Douglass, a graduate of the San 
Francisco College of Pharmacy; Sallie is a resident of Visalia; 
Susan E. became the wife of David Douglass and died in Visalia at 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 601 

the age of thirty-two; Maggie died when eighteen years old; John 
died when twenty years old; and William Reid is a prominent farmer 
and stockman, having charge of the Bone Canyon ranch. The son 
last mentioned married Linda Pleas, a native of California, and 
they have one son, Donald Morgan. 

Politically, Morgan J. Wells is a Democrat, and at one time 
served as a member of the county committee. Elected to the ofBce 
of sheritf in 1879, in March of the following year he took the oath 
of office and rendered his constituents valued service for two years 
and ten months. While holding this office Mr. Wells became asso- 
ciated with a number of celebrated cases, among them being that of 
Ben Harris, a negro, who killed his wife and child. Harris was 
overtaken in the brush by Mr. Wells and his deputies, and being 
defied by their victim,' he was shot by one of the deputy sheriffs. 
Mr. Wells belongs to Visalia lodge No. 128, F. & A. M., as does also 
his son, William R. ; and he is also a member of Visalia chapter, 
R. A. M., and the Ancient Order of United Workmen. Mrs. Wells 
is a member of the Methodist Episcopal church. Since 1909 Mr. 
and Mrs. Wells have resided in Visalia, having built a pretty little 
bungalow suited to their needs at No. 423 South Garden street. 



ANDREW JACKSON DAVIS 

To the pioneer belongs all honor, and he is invariably given due 
respect in his own countiy, for when he has passed away he is re- 
membered as one who gave his life as a part of the foundation on 
which rests the splendid social structure of a later day. Andrew 
Jackson Davis was a pioneer whose life spanned the period from 
November .S, 18.33, to May 1, 1901, when he passed away. He was 
a native of Tennessee and in 1854 left his old home and came 
overland to California, arriving at San Francisco in the spring of 
the following year. For three years he was a miner at Hangtown 
and at other mines on the Frasier river. In 1858 he came to Tulare 
county and took up government land,, near Farmersville, which he 
im]ivoved until he had one of the good farms in that vicinity. He 
married Sarah Ann Davis, a native of Illinois and of a family of 
Davises which bore no known relationship to his, and they had 
children as follows: xMfred A., Fitzhugh, Eva, Irene, Elizabeth A., 
Clement B., and Andrew P. Fitzliugh died in early manhood, Eva 
when she was seven years old, Irene when she was five years old 
and their mother in August, 1880. Elizabeth A. is the wife of B. 
W. Jennings, a ranchman near Farmersville. Clement B. died when 
thirty-three years old, leaving two children and a widow, residing in 
Los Angeles. 



602 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

The youngest of his father's family, Andrew P. Davis was born 
at Farmersville, Tulare county, Cal., May 27, 1877. After leaving 
school he helped his father on the latter 's ranch of one hundred and 
sixty acres until his father's death, then received thirty acres as his 
share of the propertj'. He began to farm on his own account 
in 1898 and planted a fine orchard which adorns his place. Having 
made a careful studj^ of fruit culture, he has been enabled to obtain 
the very best results from his trees and in a general way his entire 
venture has been very successful. In 1907 he took two hundred 
and thirty tons of prunes from one thousand trees, an average 
of eight boxes to the tree, and in 1911 the same trees yielded him 
two hundred and twenty tons. From two hundred and seventy-five 
Pliillips cling-stone peach trees he gathered sixteen tons of fruit in 
1910 and fifteen tons in 1911. 

In 1897 Mr. Davis married Elizabeth Titrich, a native of Kan- 
sas, and they have children named Mellxiurne and Irvin P. Fra- 
ternallv Mr. Davis affiliates with the Woodmen of the World. 



JOHN WHITTAKER BAIRSTOW 

Numbered conspicuously among the successful fruitgrowers of 
Hanford and vicinity is John Whittaker Bairstow, who was born in 
England, May 23, 1859. He was reared in England and there edu- 
cated and taught the secrets of the nurseryman, and it was as a 
nurseryman tliat he was employed in his native land till he was 
thirty years old. Leaving his wife and three children behind him 
in England he came to California about the first of July, 1889, 
crossing the continent by rail from New York city. He sought work 
in vain at different nurseries in Oakland and Alameda and was finally 
com])elled to take emplo^iiient in the planing mill of George C. Pape 
at East Oakland, where he worked about eighteen months. Mean- 
while he made the acquaintance of J. C. Kimball, the well-known 
prune grower of Kings county, and went with him to Hanford in 
1891, remaining in his emplo.y till the fall of that year. During 
this time he was engaged in setting out a i)rune orchard for Mr. 
Kimball and the latter 's brother and some of their relatives, handling 
all the trees and distributing them to different ranches until five 
hundred and four acres had been put under that fruit. For six 
months he helloed to bud nursery stock in the Lucerne vineyard. 

Mr. Bairstow later brought his family over from England and 
set up his home near Hanford, renting twenty acres of vineyard of 
N. M. Newell. After the first season, he pulled up the vines and 
for six years he farmed the land, working out whenever he could 
spare time from the place. His next venture was as a nursery- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 603 

mau, raising bis own stock. In iy*J(j he bought twent.v acres of the 
J. C. Courtner ranch, and ten years later an adjoining twenty, of 
the Lucerne vineyard. He set seven acres of vineyard on the 
original twenty, an acre of apricots and a small family orchard, 
but at this time he uses all the land for nursery ' stock. In 1902 he 
established a nursery yard at TIanford, where he carries Early May, 
EUierta, Lovell, Muir, Admiral Dewey, Wheatland and late and early 
Crawford free-stone peaches and Heath, Sullivan, Orange, Phillips 
and Lemon cling-stone peaches; Early Royal, Routier Peach, Tilton 
and St. Ambrose apricots; Ben Davis, White Winter Pearmain, Red 
June and Red Astrakhan apples; Bartlett and Winter Nellis pears; 
French, Robe de Sargent and Tradegov prunes; Prunes Simona and 
English Dawson plums ; Muscat and Thompson seedless grapes ; nec- 
tarines, and sycamore, maple, California walnut, poplar, Texas um- 
brella and other shade and ornamental trees. He was the first 
nurserATuan to put on sale the Tilton apricot, exhibiting it at the 
State Fruit Growers' convention in Sacramento in 1902 and taking a 
first grade diploma for choicest dried fruit in competition with all 
the fruit produced in the state. This apricot originated here in 
Kings county with J. E. Tilton, and Mr. Bairstow handles it in his 
trade. 

In March, 1877, Mr. Bairstow married Miss Louisa Williams, a 
native and then a resident of England, and she has borne him five 
cliildren, of whom two, Lott and Samuel, survive; Rosson, their 
eldest, died at Hanford; Ethelliert died in infancy in England, and 
another, born in California, died in infancy. Mr. Bairstow is an 
American in everything except actual birth that the name can imply. 
His interest in the community with which he has cast his lot is such 
as to make him a citizen of much pulilic spirit, and no call for aid 
toward the betterment of the condition of any considerable number 
of his fellow citizens fails to receive his prompt and generous 
response. 



EDMUND J. FUDGE 

Among the most prominent citizens of Visalia was the late Ed- 
mund J. Fudge, who made his home at No. 42.3 South Garden street. 
He served for eight years as deputy sheriff of Tulare county, Cal., 
and was four times elected marshal of the city mentioned. Mr. 
Pudge was l)orn in Madison county, Tenn., in 1832, a son of John B. 
Fudge, and was taken in infancy to -Arkansas, where his family lived 
until 1856. Then tliey crossed the plains to California with ox-teams, 
driving cattle and otherwise making the journey in prinutive ways 



604 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

of pioneers. In 1859 they came to the vicinity of Visalia, where the 
father prospered as a stockraiser until he passed away. 

After acquiring such education as was afforded him, Edmund 
J. Fudge took up the activities of life in the teaming business in 
Tulare county, and in 1861, when he was thirty years old, he went 
to Arizona and New Mexico, where he teamed and prospected for 
ore, and about this time he mined in Nevada and for a year in 
Stanislaus county, Cal. In Arizona he narrowly escaped being killed 
by Indians; he and four companions were chased by a band of 
redskins, and three of his companions were killed. Mr. Fudge's 
horse was shot imder him, and he sprang to a seat beside his re- 
maining companion, whose horse made good in a race with their 
pursuers. For many years after his return to Tulare county Mr. 
Fudge was engaged in stockraising with M. J. Wells, his brother-in- 
law, who has an enviable place in the history of Tulare county 
as one of its most efficient sheriffs. Under Sheriff Wells Mr. Fadge 
was appointed deputy sheriff, in which office he served eight years, 
giving the greatest satisfaction in that capacity. Elected four times 
city marshal of Visalia, he filled the office with singular fitness and 
fidelity. 

Mr. Fudge owned a quarter-section of ranch land near Visalia 
and a quarter-section of timber land in the mountains, but was for 
some time before his death practically retired from active busi- 
ness. Fraternally he was affiliated with Knights Templar Masons 
and with the Knights of Pythias. As a citizen he was always public- 
spiritedly helpful to all good interests of the community. Mr. 
Fudge died at Visalia November 14, 1911. He left an estate valued 
at about $16,000. 



HAERY JEROME RAISCH 

The ability to see a good opportunity and the ]:)romptness and 
energy which enables a man to take time by the forelock are as 
requisite to the farmer who would succeed as to men in any other 
business or profession, and perhaps in his work these factors are 
brought into demand oftener than in the work of his neighbors in 
other walks of life. One who has demonstrated this fact by the 
sagacious buying of good land, and by improving and cultivating it 
with due regard for all influencing conditions, is H. J. Raisch, who 
lives five miles north of Hanford, in Kings county, Cal. 

It was in the honored old state of Kentucky that Mr. Raisch was 
born on February 7, 1861. However, he lived there but a com- 
paratively short time, for he was early taken by his family to Kan- 
sas, where he was reared to manhood, educated in the public schools 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 605 

and initiated into the details of practical farming. In 1883, when 
he was about twentj^-two years old, he came to Hanford, where he 
prospered for some years at teaming and as a farmer on rented 
land. In 1907 he bought twenty-two acres five miles north of the 
city, ten acres of which was a tine peach orchard. He has since ac- 
quired an adjoining tract of the same area and is preparing to go 
quite extensively into fruit culture. Besides this property he owns 
one hundred and sixty acres of grazing land on the west side 
which he rents out. In 1912 he inherited twentj'-two acres of his 
father's estate, which is located opposite his home place and is all in 
vines. He has improved his homestead with buildings and fences 
and outfitted it with everything in the way of machinery and ap- 
pliances that is essential to the successful prosecution of his enter- 
prise. 

In 1885 Mr. Raisch united his fortunes by marriage with those 
of Miss Cinderella Barlow, who by her spupathy and advice has 
aided him materially in the winning of his most substantial suc- 
cess. Genial of disposition aud social in all his instincts, he has 
from time to time identified himself with fraternal orders, notably 
with the Knights of Pythias and the Woodmen of the World. As a 
citizen he has shown his devotion to the general good by giving all 
due encouragement to such measures as have been promoted for the 
development of his town, county and state. 



JOHN CULBERSON RICE 

A pioneer of Central California who has been identified with its 
development for over half a century is John Culberson Rice. He was 
born in Benton county, Ark., April 27, 1849, son of Isaac and Martha 
E. (Gardner) Rice, natives of Tennessee. In 1857, Isaac Rice, with 
his wife and children, crossed the plains with ox-teams to Califor- 
nia, their journey consuming six months. They passed the winter 
of 1857-58 in Napa county and in the following spring went to Clear 
Lake, Lake county, where the elder Rice went into the raising of 
cattle, horses and hogs. In 1862 he went back to Wooden valley, 
where he had passed his first winter in California, and bought one 
hundred and sixty acres, on which he raised stock until in 1867, and 
then moved to Vacaville, Solano county, in order to obtain better 
educational facilities for his children. Buying town property tliere, 
he also rented land outside which he farmed with success till 1872, 
when he came to Tulare county and took up a quarter-section north 
of Visalia. Later he farmed near Dinuba, where he passed away in 
1888, his wife surviving him till in 1907. As a Mason and as a 
citizen, Mr. Rice stood high in the public regard. Following are 



606 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

the names of his children : John C. ; Laura, wife of E. Edwards, of 
Globe, Ariz. ; Mrs. Melissa Smith, of Dinuba ; Ella, wife of John 
Bacon, a rancher north of Visalia ; Maimie Burke ; Jessie B., who mar- 
ried James Eyce of Selma ; Thomas; Hattie, wife of "William Hunter; 
Charles and Frank. 

Through the first winter after the departure of his father from 
Vaea\-ille, John Culberson Rice remained there. He spent the next 
two years in Nevada and came to Hanford on Christmas Day, 1876, 
and farmed for a time south of the city. His present ranch, one mile 
from the city line, contains seventy-six acres set to fruit and vines, 
including twenty acres of Muscat grapes, eight of Thompson seedless, 
three of primes, twenty of peaches and three of apricots. The re- 
mainder of the place is devoted to alfalfa and pasture. 

In 1877, Mr. Rice married Miss Carrie Barton, a native of Bur- 
lington, Iowa, and they have children, George, at Reedley; J. Clar- 
ence, coroner of Kings county, a biographical sketch of whom appears 
in these pages; Mrs. Leila (Rice) Shields, and Lulu, a student at 
Mills College. Mr. Rice is a member of the Independent Order of 
Odd Fellows and of the Woodmen of the World. 



J. CLARENCE RICE 

The coroner of Kings county, Cal., J. Clarence Rice of Hanford, 
prominent as a funeral director, was born near that city December 
5, 1880, son of John Culberson Rice, and was educated in the pub- 
lic schools of Hanford and at Heald's Business College in San Fran- 
cisco. For a time after his return from the institution just men- 
tioned he was in commercial emplo>^llent, but eventually he went 
into the undertaking business with E. J. Kelly as a partner. Later 
Mr. Kelly retired from the enterprise and in September, 1902. W. M. 
Thomas .became a member of the firm. In 1908 Mr. Rice bought the 
interest of Mr. Thomas, and since then has been sole proprietor. 
He served as deputy county coroner under Coroner Thomas and 
under Coroner Denton, and so efficient was he in the office that in 
1910 he was elected to the ofiice of coroner. 

Real estate has commanded Mr. Rice's attention for some years 
and he has bought and sold quite extensively. At this time he is 
the owner of fifty acres of apricot and ]ieach orchard, a mile and 
a half south of Armoua. He served as the first president of the 
Kings County Chamber of Connnerce, which was organized in No- 
vember, 1908, to succeed the Kings County Promotion association. 
In other ways he has amply jiroven his ]iublic spirit, and he is 
regarded as a patriotic and heljiful citizen who has close to his heart 
the best interests of his community. Fraternally, he affiliates with 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 607 

the Masons, being a Shriner and a member of subordinate orders, 
with the Knights of Pythias and with the Woodmen of the World. 
In September, 1902, he married Miss Eva M. Sutherland, a native 
of California, whose father was a pioneer in Tulare, and they have 
a son, Leland Eice. 



WILLIAM H. DAVENPORT 

For more than a quarter of a century there has been identified 
with Tulare county William H. Davenport, the present general man- 
ager of the Wutchumna Water company, who was born in Missouri 
in 1842 and was among the early pioneers of the state of California. 
The sou of Stephen and Elena (HoUoway) Davenport, both natives 
of Kentucky, he shared their early experiences, which were filled 
with adventure incident to the coming to the west. In 1846 his 
father went to New Mexico, but returned in the winter of 1847-48 
and in the following spi'ing lie treked back to Santa Fe, N. M., 
taking with him his wife, but leaving William H. and his elder 
brother, John, with their grandiDarents. In the fall of 1849 Stephen 
Davenport followed the onrush to California for gold, arriving at 
the town of Mariposa on March 17, 1850. 

In 1853 William H. Davenport and his brother John crossed the 
plains to California with the late William R. Owen, a California 
pioneer of 1849, who brought with him about five hundred head of 
cattle, and they arrived at Mariposa in September, 1853, joining their 
parents there. Until the fall of 1857 the family remained there 
and then moved to Tulare county, settling just north of Visalia near 
the present site of that city, and here the parents passed away. 

In 1863 William H. Daveni)ort went from Tulare county to Ne- 
vada, where he was employed in lumbering operations until in 1870, 
when he made his way back to Tulare county. After ranching in 
a small way until 1875 he expanded his operations in the Mussel 
slough district, where he met with varying success until 1882. Then 
he came to Visalia and connected himself with the Wutchumna 
Water company, for which he has been general manager ever since. 
This irrigation ditch company was founded in 1871 by Stephen Bar- 
ton, Sanmel Jennings and Joseph Spear. Its ditch was enlarged in 
1879 and its system now comprises twenty miles of irrigation ditches, 
supplied by the water of the Kaweah river. The system, which fol- 
lows the contour of the land, has its terminal on section twenty, 
townshiji eighteen, range twenty-five, and includes the largest arti- 
ficial reservoir in the county, which has an area when full of one 
hundred and sixty-five acres, when empty of sixty acres, its sides 
extending ten feet above low-water mark. Many of the orchards. 



608 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

as well as other farmiug lands, situated to the north and east of 
Visalia, are irrigated by this canal. 

In 1870 Mr. Davenport married Miss Ann Early, a native of 
Texas, and a daughter of a hero of San Jacinto, who fought under 
Gen. Sam Houston in that memorable battle of 1836 by which was 
won the independence of Texas. Her father crossed the plains to 
California in 1849 and returned to Texas, bringing his family to 
the coast in 1852 and locating in Mariposa county. In 1868 he moved 
to Glennville, Kern county, where he lived until 1884, when he passed 
away. Mr. and Mrs. Davenport have a son, Frank Davenport, who 
married Mrs. Helen Huff and is a conductor on the Sierra railroad 
in Tuolumne county. Mr. Davenport is a man of much public spirit, 
devoted heart and soul to the interests of his community, who never 
neglects an opportunity to aid to the extent of his ability any move- 
ment for the general good. 



ETHELBERT S. WEDDLE 

The family of which Ethelbert S. Weddle was a member re- 
moved to Tennessee in 18.j4 and lived there until 186.5, then settled 
in Indiana, where it made its home until 1874, when it came to Cali- 
fornia. Mr. Weddle was born in Virginia, April 1, 1849. 

Soon after he came to Tulare county, Mr. Weddle went into 
the sheep business, which profitably occupied his attention four years. 
At that time the land was all raw and sheep could roam throughout 
all the territory between the river and the mountains. When he 
sold his sheep he engaged in contracting and building. Later he 
took up grain farming and fruit raising and now he has eighty acres 
in fruit, fifty-five in vines, two in oranges and forty in alfalfa. In 
1911 he sold a ton of Muscats to the acre. His seedless grapes yield 
a ton and a half to the acre. He is a thoroughly up-to-date farmer, 
filled with new ideas, and he employs modern methods in every de- 
tail of his work. As a citizen he is public-spirited and devoted to the 
general interests. Fraternally, he affiliates with the Independent 
Order of Odd Fellows, and politically he is a Re]nibliean. 

In Indiana Ethelbert S. Weddle married Theresa Wilson, a 
native of that state, who bore him children named Charles and 
Walter E., who are now physicians in the active practice of their 
profession, one in Fresno, Cal., the other in Reedley, Cal. Dr. 
Charles Weddle, of Fresno, married Maymie Jacobs and has daugh- 
ters named Barbara and Beatrice. Dr. Walter E. Weddle. of Reedley, 
married Margaret Parker, and has children named Robert and Dorothy. 

Mrs. Theresa Weddle, who died November 30, 1908, was the 
daughter of Olli S. and Elizabeth (Hamilton) Wilson, and a lineal 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 609 

desceudant of Alexander Hamilton. The Wilsons fignred in the period 
preceding the Eevolutionary war, and trace their ancestry to John 
Wilson, who participated in that conflict. 



J. ALBERT RAGLE 

Farming has been the chief occupation of J. Albert Ragle. A 
son of California, he was born in Sonoma county in 1861 and has 
lived in Tulare county since he was four or five years old. Here 
ne was reared and educated and taught practical farming in a most 
practical way. His first memorable experiences were in the cattle 
business in the ))eriod after 1870. It was in 1871 that he began to 
take an active part in the work of the ranch, his father owning at 
that time six hundred and forty acres and being a leader among the 
ranchers of his part of the county. 

In 1884 Mr. Ragle located on his present home farm, then new 
land with negligible improvements, and since that time he has de- 
voted himself to its development, making it one of the best orange 
and general fruit ranches in the vicinity. In 1889 occurred the mar- 
riage of Mr. Ragle to Miss Jennie M. Lynn, a native of Arkansas, 
whose parents are living in Fresno county, where her father, Wil- 
liam F. Lynn, is well known. Mrs. Ragle has borne her husband 
three children. Adah was educated at Tulare, and on December 26, 
1912, was married to W. A. Stone, of Fresno; Etta is in the high 
school at Exeter, and Orval is attending school near home. William 
C. Ragle, Mr. Ragle's father, canie to California in 1853, one of a 
party who made the trij) with an ox-team train, consuming more 
months than it would now consume days to accomplish the same 
journey. He began his active life practically without means and 
achieved a success which made him one of the well-to-do men of 
his community. He passed away in 1895. 

The public spirit of J. Albert Ragle has been demonstrated in 
so man}' ways that he has come to be known as a useful citizen of 
the progressive type. For fifteen years he has been a member of 
the school board, and in a fraternal way he affiliates with the 
Woodmen of the World, and with the order of Artisans. 



J. M. SAGE 

That popular and successful dairyman of Waukena, Tulare 
county, Cal., whose name is well known throughout the county, was 
born in Jackson county. Mo., August 13, 1858, and has lived in 
Tulare countv since 1890. 



610 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

J. M. Sage grew up in the states of Iowa, Missouri and Kan- 
sas, where he was a student in tlie public schools until he was sixteen 
years of age. At seventeen lie began work with a gang on a con- 
struction train in Carroll county. Mo., and continued at this work 
until he was twenty, then procuring emjiloynient in the roundhouse 
as tireman, determining to become a locomotive engineer. Later 
he accepted a jiosition as fireman and stationary engineer. In 1881 
he engaged with the Santa Fe at Las Vegas, N. M., soon thereafter 
going to Los Angeles, where he went to work for the Southern Pa- 
cific and later became engineer on a run from Bakersfield to Fresno 
by way of Porterville. He saved his earnings and used the $2500 
saved as an investment in farming operations in San Joaquin and 
Tulare counties, having eight hundred acres planted to wheat, but 
met with almost com])lete financial failure in this venture owing to 
the drouth. His holdings now comprise forty acres, which he has 
developed into a fine dairy projierty, it being in Kings county, and 
he feeds and accommodates thirty-seven milch cows. In this venture 
he has proved most successful. 

In 1886 Mr. Sage became the husband of Miss Louisa Minges, 
born at Stockton, Cal., in 1859, a most worthy woman who was to 
him an achnirable helpmate until her death, which occurred in Aug- 
ust, 1905. Mr. and Mrs. Sage had children : Bernice, Hazel, Philo- 
pena and Wesley, who survived her. Mr. Sage married (second) 
Mrs. Josephine Simpson of Salt Lake city. 

As a dairyman Mr. Sage has won high re])utation, and his busi- 
ness, already large, is rapidly increasing. The quality and purity of 
his ])roducts connnend them to all discriminating buyers. His dairy 
is up-to-date in every resi)ect and all his methods and appliances are 
such as meet the ai)))roval of the most critical judges. As a citizen 
he is public-spirited and helpful. 



ANDREW SCIARONE 

A pioneer farmer of Tulare county as well as a pioneer busi- 
ness man of Hanford, Andrew Sciarone was born in the Canton 
of Ticino, Switzerland, July 13, 18;M. There he received his educa- 
tion and remained until he was twenty-one years old, when he went 
to Australia and was variously engaged until 1870, then returning 
to his native country. He arrived in the L^nited States in January, 
1872, and came direct to San Francisco. He traveled to Gilroy, Hol- 
lister and Fresno, and engaged in farming, and became the owner 
of land by pre-emption and later on homesteaded a tract of eighty 
acres, owning two hundred and forty acres in Tulare county, near the 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES Rll 

boundary of Fresno county. In 1879 he came to Manford, when it was 
a struggling village, and ever since then has made it his home, 
where for the past fifteen years he has lived retired from all business 
pursuits. He invested in business property in Hanford and has 
been interested in the growth and development of the city from its 
start. Agriculture has interested him ever since he arrived in this 
country. 

In 1854, Mr. Sciarone married in Switzerland and became the 
father of one daughter, Josei:)hine, who married J. Martinetti. Mr. 
Sciarone has two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. His 
wife passed away in 1S!)7. Of his descendants one grandson, Albino 
Martinetti, is attending the University of California at Berkeley. 
In every way Mr. Sciarone has demonstrated his public spirit and 
has lived to see a wonderful change in the Golden State. Frater- 
nally he is a member of the Knights of Pythias of Hanford. 



JOHN SIGLER 

It was in the Old Dominion, the Mother of States, and the 
mother also of men who have won fortune in every state in the 
Union, that John Sigler was born, February 3, 1852. Such schooling 
as was available to him in his boyhood he obtained near his father's 
home, and at seventeen he moved to Maryland, where he lived four 
or live years before he came to California. He located in Yolo 
county in 1873 and in 1875 came to Tulare county and bought three 
hundred and twenty acres of land six miles southwest of the site 
of Hanford, his ])resent home. He helped to secure the Lakeside 
ditch and with its aid developed his farm and grew grain for 
twenty years until he gave up grain in favor of cattle and sheep, 
which were his princi|)al products till he turned his attention to 
general farming, though he raised a good numy hogs. He has re- 
cently bought one hundred and sixty acres, distant from his home- 
stead about half a mile, which he will put into alfalfa. His interests 
in irrigation ditches has not been confined to the one just mentioned, 
for he is a stockholder in lintli the Lakeside ditch and the New Deal 
ditch. 

In 1X7."), wiicn Mr. Sigler first came to Tulare county to buy 
land, wliicli was selling very cheaply at that time, he arrived in 
\'isalia and from there he came across the country to Lemoore. Some 
few ditches had been started, but none completed. Fiom the ap- 
))eai'ance of the soil he concluded that the land would wear out 
with a couple of crops after irrigation began, and cease to yield pay- 
ing returns, llowevei- he determined to ))urciiasc i)r()perty and the 
returns lie lias reaped since that date show that his |)rediction was 



612 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

not fulfilled. By farming to wheat many years the soil did show 
the ill effects, hut with fruit and rotation of crops wonderful returns 
are possible. 

In all things Mr. Sigler is conservative. He is especially so 
in his political views, and while he glories in the progressive prin- 
ciples of American democracy he has no desire to be classed with 
traveling Eepublicans. His interest in public education impelled 
him to accept the trusteeship of the Eustic school district, which he 
is discharging with characteristic efficiency and fidelity. 

In 1887 Mr. Sigler married Miss Lodema N. Dewey and she has 
borne him three daughters, Leah and Catherine, who are members 
of their parents' household, and Arlie, who is the wife of Marvin 
Eoberts. 



OSBOENE L. WILSON 

That venerable and honorable citizen of Kings county, Cal., O. Tj. 
Wilson, who is living in retirement at No. 602 East Ninth street, Han- 
ford, was born in Washington county, Ind., August 29, 1825, and has 
lived in California since August 8, 1849. He grew to manhood on a 
farm on Blue river, went to school at Salem and was managing a farm 
there for his father at the time of the outbreak of the Mexican war. 
Enlisting in Company D, Second Indiana Volunteers, he was sent to 
Mexico in 1846 and served until the expiration of his term of enlist- 
ment. He returned to his home in Indiana, but again enlisted in Com- 
pany B, Fifth Indiana Vohanteers, under Captain Green, and was sent 
again to Mexico in 1847 and served gallantly imtil the end of the war. 
when he was honorably discharged. He took part in many important 
engagements, including those at Buena Vista and Del Eey under such 
commanders as Generals Taylor, Woolfe and Scott, the latter having 
been commander-in-chief. He has kept a copy of the Salem News, pub 
lished at Salem, Ind., April 7, 1847, an extra edition devoted largely 
to the events of the Mexican war and containing bulletins of the very 
latest news from the camp of General Taylor. After the war he went 
to Scotland county. Mo., where he remained through the winter of 
1848-49. On April 15, 1849, he started with an ox-team wagon train to 
California and arrived within the borders of this state August 8 fol- 
lowing. For two years he mined at Einggold and Weavertown, on the 
American river, at Yuba, at Eough and Eeady, at Nevada City and in 
Nevada, meeting with fair success. His associations were not to Ms 
taste and in 1851 he bought land at Gilroy, Cal., part of the Los 
Alamos grant, and devoted himself to cattle raising with farming as 
a subsidiarv business. There he remained until he sold his land to 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 613 

Thomas Bey and drove liis cattle and sheep over into that part of 
Tuhire county which is now Kings county and squatted on part of the 
Laguna De Tache grant. Later he secured one thousand acres of 
hmd on his Mexican war hind warrant, lying on the Kings river in 
sections 1, 12 and 13. After that he bought land from time to time 
until he owned six thousand acres in that vicinity and in Fresno county 
and for about thirty years he was engaged in sheeji raising. Even- 
tually he divided most of his land among his children and in 1900 re- 
tired from active life. 

On December 3, 1854, Mr. Wilson married Miss Rose Wilburn at 
Gilroy, and they had thirteen children, six of whom are now living. 
Mr. Wilson has nineteen grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. 
Those children who survive are: John A.; William C. ; Julia, widow 
of John Alcorn; Mrs. Eose Henry; Mrs. Fannie Hughes, and Calhoun 
Wilson. During all his long and honorable career Mr. Wilson has 
consistently demonstrated his public spirit and has been in the van 
of all worthy movements for the public uplift. He has bought eight 
cemetery lots, on which he has erected a replica of the Washington 
monument, which when he has passed away will be his lasting 
memorial. 



THOMAS CLINTON NEWMAN 

A member of an old pioneer family of California and a native 
of Tulare county, Thomas Clinton Newman, who lives nine miles 
north of Exeter, on rural free delivery route No. 1, was born Decem- 
ber 5, 1882, a son of Thomas W. Newman, who was born while his 
parents were en route across the plains, in 1856, from their old home 
in Ohio. William Newman, grandfather of Thomas Clinton, had 
come out to California in 1848 and gone back in 1849. He finally 
returned accompanied by his sons, E. S., C. 0. and Thomas W. New- 
man, and the latter 's wife, and the family settled on the Sacramento 
river, but were driven out by floods, and after living at different 
places in the state Thonuis W. Newman at length located in Tulare 
county and in 1872 settled on the present homestead of his son. 

Had William Newman arrived at his first location in California 
one day earlier than he did he would have been the pioneer of pioneers 
there. While crossing the ]ilains half of his party had been killed 
in the Mountain Meadow massacre. Thomas C. Newman has several 
relics of the overland trip, among them part of the chain used by 
his grandfather on the cattle he drove and an old shotgun that his 
grandfather used while standing guard over the train. 

After locating in Tulare countv Thomas W. Newman set about 



()14 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

oleariug laud and putting it under cultivation and soon developed a 
farm that compared favoralily with auy in his neighl)orhood and 
which he operated successfully until 1909. when he jiassed away, his 
wife having died when their son was about five years old. 

December 20, 1905. T. C. Newman married Miss Eva May Ster- 
rett, a native of California, and their two children are lola, now six 
years old, and Bernice, who is four years old. In the house which is 
now his home tliere passed away his grandfather, his grandmother, 
his father and his uncle, R. S. Newman. The place now consists of 
eighty acres, and is devoted to the cultivation of alfalfa and potatoes 
and to the jnirposes of a dairy of about ten or twelve cows. 

It was in the St. John's district school tliat Mr. Newman was 
educated, and to him belongs the honor of having been the first grad- 
uate of its grammar school. "While not active in political affairs, he 
is helpfully public spirited. Fraternally he affiliates with the Masons. 



FRED STORZBACK 

Germany has given to the United States a class of citizens indus- 
trious, honest, thrifty and law aliiding. who have done nuich to build 
up the interests of the conununities witli which individually they have 
east their lots. One of the most progressive citizens of Corcoran, 
Kings county, Cal., is Fred Storzback, a native of Wurtemberg. 
Young Storzback attended pul)lic schools near the parental home 
until he was fourteen years old, when he immigrated to England 
and engaged in the butcher liusiness. From there at the age of twenty 
he came to the United States in 1885, settling in Philadelphia, where 
he acquired a practical knowledge of the baker's trade. After work- 
ing as a baker in different parts of the United States he came to 
California in December, 1905, and January 15, 1906, he settled at 
Corcoran, where he operated a combined bakery and restaurant for 
two years, then transformed his establishment into a combined bakery 
and ice cream parlor. His business, which from every point of view 
is successful, is one of the most popular in Corcoran, and the purity 
of his goods and his courtesy to all patrons commend him strongly 
to the general public. 

In 1895 Mr. Storzback married Elizabeth Schlep, who was born 
August 17, 1876, in the state of Louisiana, and they have children as 
follows: Pauline, Augusta and Bertha, who are mentioned here 
in the order of their nativity. Mr. Storzback is a member of the 
Independent Order of Odd Fellows and is a AVoodman of the World, 
loyally devoted to the interests of these orders and ready at all times 
to meet any demand upon him in behalf of their beneficent work. As 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 615 

a citizen lie takes a vital interest in everything' that pertains to the 
growth and development of the town and to the econoniio problems 
of its people. So flattering has been his success thus far that to his 
observant neighbors his future is full of brilliant promise. In 1913 
Mr. Storzback built a tine two-story brick building, 50x112, which is 
equipped with the finest aud most up-to-date machinery and appli- 
ances for the bakery business and is a fitting testimonial to his laud- 
able enterprise. 



JOHN BURRELL 

The most extensive breeder of jacks in the territory round Han- 
ford, and in fact in the state, is John Burrell, who is operating seven 
and one-half miles southwest of that city. It was in Tulare (now 
Kings) county that Mr. Burrell was born January 5, 1880, a son of 
Monroe Burrell, who lived near Armona. The elder Burrell, who had 
grown to manhood in California, had come to this vicinity in 187fi. He 
is now running a fruit ranch near Graugeville. 

It was in the neighborhood of Grangeville that John Burrell was 
reared on a farm and educated in the public schools. When he made 
his start in life for himself it was in the oil fields at Coalinga, where 
he worked two years. Then, returning to Kings county, he rented the 
Haas ranch, near Grangeville five years, operating it successfully 
as a stock and alfalfa farm. Then he rented three hundred and 
twenty acres seven and one-half miles southwest of Hanford, twenty 
acres of which is in vineyard. He devotes himself chiefly to the 
raising of mules and hogs, his yearly average being forty mules and 
eight luindred Duroc liogs. Some time ago he bought seven valuable 
imported jacks for breeding purposes, which he has sold })esides a 
number of others that lie lias raised, in all alxnit twenty head have 
been disjiosed of during the jiast three years. lie has another 
importation of jacks from Kentucky and Missouri to arrive aliout 
January, li>]."). Besides these he owns twenty head of Mammoth 
jenneys which he uses for raising jacks. Thoroughly ui)-to-date 
ill all his methods, having intimate knowledge of the work in 
hand aud using only the latest improved aids, he is successful in his 
special line beyond many of his neighbors and comi)etitors. His 
knowledge of the market is such that he is usually al)le to sell to the 
very best advantage. He is a member of the "Woodmen of the World, 
devoted to all the interests of that beneficent fraternity. As a citizen 
he is notably public sjjirited and helpful. 



616 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

THOMAS JEFFERSON CLARKSON 

In Scott coimty. 111., Thomas Jet¥erson Clarksoii, who lives in 
Exeter, Tulare county, Cal., was born in 1860, and he was nine years 
old when his ]:)arents brought him to California. The family lived in 
Yolo county until 1871. then came to Tulare county. He attended the 
public schools more or less until he was twelve years old, and from his 
twelfth to his twenty-eighth year he rode after cattle on the plains. 
Then he turned his attention to blacksmithing, which has employed his 
energies ever since. For a time he worked from place to place, but 
during the last nine years he has operated a general blacksmithing 
and agricultural repair shop at Exeter. 

As a Democrat Mr. Clarkson has long lieen ]irominent in the 
affairs of his town and county, and was aiipointed a member of the 
health board of the city of Exeter, in which office he is serving with 
ability, integrity and discretion at the present time. Fraternally he 
affiliates with the organizations of the Woodmen of the World and 
Knights of Pythias of Exeter. He is devoted heart and soul to the 
general interests of the county. Coming here when the land was wild 
and there were a1)out as many Indian inhabitants as white ones, he 
has witnessed and participated in its development to one of the rich 
sections of one of the great states of the Union. 

The woman who became the wife of Mr. Clarkson was before her 
marriage Mrs. Mary Augeline Austin. She was born in Kansas of 
a family who were among the pioneers there. Four children have 
blessed their union : Annie, May. Presley and Hazel. Annie is Mrs. 
V. W. Lucas of Exeter. May married Charles Maddox of Exeter. 
Preslev is in the high school. 



CHARLES GREEN McFARLAND 

An innovatoi- among farmers and dairymen in Tulare county, 
Cal., Charles Green McFarland, who lives two miles west of Tulare, 
is undoiibtedly deserving of special mention. He is a native of 
Green county. Mo., born February 27, 1872, who came to California 
in 1887. During the five years after his arrival he was employed 
by his father, and in 1892 bought the Exeter stable at Tulare, where 
he conducted a livery business for about a year and a half. Sub- 
sequently he grew grain eight years, and in 1901 bought forty 
acres of land and rented three hundred acres, on all of which he 
set up as a stockman and dair^^nan and he operated with success 
five years. His location during that period was four miles south of 
Tidare. He now bought thirty-two acres two miles west of the 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 617 

Tulare post office and rented an adjoining thirty-two acres. He 
has on his own place twenty acres of alfalfa and twenty-five acres 
on his leased land, and milks thirty cows, disposing of their prod- 
ucts over a milk route which he has established in Tulare. He has 
the only herd of registered Jersey cows in the vicinity, thirty-five 
head altogether, the largest milk producers thereabouts, the average 
test of their milk yielding 4.8 in butter fat. He has raised no cattle 
except thoroughbreds and it is only after years of selection and of 
careful attention to details that he has been able to produce a herd 
so excellent. In 1910 he built a silo on his place, in which respect 
he was a pioneer in his part of the county, and in 1912 he installed 
an electric pumping plant which furnishes ample water for all 
purposes. 

On February 27, 1896, Mr. McFarland married Matilda Monroe, 
who has borne him a daughter and two sons, Lois, Merrill and Loren, 
who are aged respectively fourteen, ten and eight years. The 
family are communicants of the Methodist Episcopal church of 
Tulare, and Mr. McFarland is a member of the order of Fraternal 
Aid of that city. He is a stockholder in the Dairymen's Co-operative 
Creamery Company of Tulare, and also a stockholder in the Tulare 
Power Company. 



ELMER A. BATCHELDER 

It was in Plainfield, Vt., that Elmer A. Batchelder, a prominent 
fruit grower, living two and one-half miles east of Lindsay, Tulare 
county. Cal., was born in the year 1866. He was brought up and edu- 
cated in his native place, and when he was seventeen years old came 
to California and was for a year and 'a half a resident in Nevada 
county. Then for a year he was in the Sacramento valley, whence 
he went into Humboldt county, where he passed the succeeding 
twelve months. During this time he had been employed at ranch 
work and had acquired an intimate knowledge of California farming 
in the best of all schools — the school of experience. 

In 1887 Mr. Batchelder came to Tulare county and for a time 
worked rented land. In 1892 he homesteaded a C|uarter section in 
the district known as Round valley and made improvements on it 
and devoted it to wheat growing till 1906, when he set out twenty 
acres of orange trees and fifteen acres of vines, including five acres 
of Valencia oranges. His orchard is so well advanced that the crop 
for 1912 from the twenty acres promises to reach the 1,000-box mark. 
By later purchase he has added to his land holdings until he now 
has one hundred and forty acres. 



618 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

The parents of Mr. Batelielder, natives of Vermont, both have 
passed away. In 1893 lie married Catharine Crook, a native daugh- 
ter of California, and she has borne liim two children : Harold, now 
eighteen years old, and Eunice E., now in her fourteenth year. They 
are attending school at Lindsay. Mrs. Batchelder's parents were 
early settlers in Tulare county. Mr. Batchelder. has never aspired 
to public office, but because he was known to be a good-roads man 
of advanced ideas he was three years ago given the oversight of the 
roads in his district, and so well has he discharged his trust that 
he is likely to be kept at the same task year after year. Public 
spirited in a generous degree, he is ever ready to respond to demands 
upon him for the good of the community. Fraternally he affiliates 
with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows and the Knights of 
Pvtliias. 



ALBERT A. HALL 

Tliere are probably few men known more widely or more affec- 
tionately in Tulare county than Albert A. ("Dad") Hall, of Tulare. A 
native of Watertown, N. Y., he was born July (>, 1846. While he was 
yet quite young, his family moved to Baraboo, Wis., where he was 
brought up and educated so far as he could be before he went away to 
the war between the North and the South. That was in 1863, when 
he was but seventeen. He enlisted in Company F, Third AViscousin 
Cavalry, which regiment was under command of Colonel Barstow, and 
saw arduous service, ])rinci]ially in guerilla warfare in Missouri and 
Arkansas, till he was mustered out at Leavenworth, Kans., June 27, 
1865. Returning to Wisconsin, he was interested iu hop raising thei'e 
two years, then went to Nebraska and took U]) some government land. 
The grasshojipers were so numerous, however, that after five years 
filled with attempts to save from them enough for his absolute per- 
sonal needs, to say nothing of improving a farm, he gladly turned his 
face toward California. He arrived iu February, 1877, and bought a 
hundred and sixty acres of laud near Forestville, Sonoma county, 
whicli he cleared of trees and i)lanted to a vineyard which yielded liini 
grapes for seven years. In 1888 he came to Tulare county and, settling 
on forty acres north of Tulare city, engaged in the dairy business and 
sold milk in Tulare fifteen years. Two years during that period he 
fed cattle in the mountains. In 1904 lie established at Tulare City an 
express and transfer business, which, under the half jocular title of 
Dad's Transfer Company, has come to be one of the popular institu- 
tions of the town. In tliis well established enterprise his son. Rozelle 
E. Hall, is his partner. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 619 

Naturally, Mr. Hall is a memlier of the Grand Army of the Re- 
public. Thus he keeps alive memories of the days of the Civil war in 
which he was a faithful, if a \ery young, soldier. He is a Royal Arch 
Mason, a member also of Tulare Lodge No. 269, Free and Accepted 
Masons. With Forestville Lodge No. 320, Independent Order of Odd 
Fellows he affiliates also. He married Miss Adilla Plummer, a native 
of Wisconsin, in 1867, and they have children, Rozelle E., Carrie (wife 
of J. E. Robidoux, Edu (Mrs. F. A. Thomas, of Tulare), Beryl and 
Edna. 



JOHN R. REED 

A native of England, John R. Reed, of Orosi, Tulare county, Cal., 
was born in Leicestershire, November 14, 1840, was l)rought to the 
United States when six months old, stopping at New York City and 
Philadel])hia, and about 1848 arrived in what is now Evanston, 111. 
He was the oldest of the six children of his parents and eventually 
became one of the bread winners of the family. In 1851, when the boy 
was about eleven years old, his father, responsive to the lure of gold, 
left for California, and made the journey by way of the Isthmus of 
Panama. After his arrival his family heard from him several times, 
then came rumors of Indian outbreaks in California, they heard from 
him no more and his fate has been a mystery which none of his chil- 
dren have been able to unravel. 

In the course of events the family settled in Illinois, whence the 
mother took her children to Geauga county, Ohio, settling not far from 
Cleveland. During their residence there ex-President Garfield boarded 
with Mrs. Reed for a time while attending school. The support of 
the family devolved upon her and John R. The latter early found 
work at $3 a month and his board. He kept l)usy, his fortunes im- 
proving until in 1861 he was receiving $13 and his board. Then he 
enlisted April 24, 1861, in Company F, Nineteenth Ohio ^^olunteer In- 
fantry, and served for a time in West Virginia. Returning home lie 
veteraned by enlisting in Company C, First Ohio Light Artillery wilh 
which he served until in 1863. He had now earned $400 in liounty and 
he married and gave his mother $.300, his newly wedded wife $7."), then 
re-enlisted in his old company to serve during the period of the war. 
He was duly discharged and mustered out at Cleveland in Juiu\ 1865. 
lie jiarticipated in many notable engagements, including Rich Moun- 
tain and Chickamauga, and was under Sherman on the march from 
Atlanta to tlie sea. His last engagement was at Bentonville, N. C., 
where his brother was killed. At the close of his service he returned 
home. His first wife, who was Miss Adelaide Gillmore, bore him two 



620 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

children. George V., casliier of the First National Bank of Lindsay, 
married Jennie Mitchell and they have two children, Jay and Earl. 
Daniel L. married Lelah Bander and they have two children, Eoscoe 
and Lola, and are living- near Reedley. Mr. Reed's second wife, Mary 
Ann Post, whom he married in Ohio and who was a native of that 
state, bore him iowr children: Bernice (deceased), Eliza Mabel, Ray- 
son J. and Sarah A. Raysou J. married Edith Bacon and they have 
a son. John Allen Bacon Reed and live at Lindsay. All of Mr. Reed's 
children were born in Ohio and all have been given as good education 
as is afforded in common schools. The family removed to California 
in 1886 and located in Fresno county, where Mr. Reed engaged in 
wheat farming. Later he took charge of four sections, increasing his 
acreage to fifteen thousand acres, and broadened operations by raising 
wheat and barley. Pie was thus engaged for sixteen years in the 
vicinity of Reedley. He came to Orosi in 1902, bought seventy acres, 
]iarty improved with vines. At this time he has eighteen acres in 
vines, ten in peaches, forty in alfalfa, and also engages in dairying 
and the stock business. 

The educational ad^'antages of Mr. Reed were limited, Init by read- 
ing and otherwise he has become a well informed man. In his 
political affiliation he is a Democrat and his influence in local affairs 
has been considerable. He was the organizer and the first master of 
the Masonic Lodge at Orosi and is a member of the Presbj'terian 
Church. 



ROBERT A. PUTNAM 

John and Polly Ann (Shields) Putnam, natives respectively of 
Illinois and of Indiana, were visiting at Moimt Sterling, Ind.. when 
their son Robert A. Putnam was born, April 24, 1856. Burland 
Shields, grandfather of Robert A. Putnam in the maternal line, came 
overland to California in 1849 and settled in Shasta county. His party 
was several times menaced l)y Indians, but no member of it was killed 
and all arrived safely. For a time Mr. Shields mined, but later he 
becaine a stockman and was successful in that way until his death. No 
other member of the family came to the Pacific coast until 1901, when 
Robert A. Putnam located in Tulare county. He married in 1877, 
Sarah A. Shackleford, who was born in Mississippi in 1856, of parents 
who were natives of North Carolina. She was reared and educated in 
Illinois and one of her brothers served as a soldier in the Civil war. 
She has borne her husband seven children : John F., George William, 
Laura E., Piua M., Myra N., Mabel G. and Sadie B. John F. of Orosi 
married Blanche Miller and has two children. George William mar- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 621 

ried Katie McKersie and has two children. Laura E. married Duane 
Straw. Pina M. has graduated from the Orosi high school and the 
others have been educated in the public school. 

When Mr. Putnam came to his farm nine acres of it was devoted 
to peaches and five acres and a half to Muscat grapes. In 1910 he sold 
seven and a half tons of dried peaches, a goodly quantity of green 
peaches and eleven tons of raisins. A portion of his ranch is devoted 
to pasture and he has some stock, but he keeps only enough horses for 
his own use. He is as progressive a citizen as he is a farmer and in a 
public-spirited way aids every movement for the good of the com- 
munitv. He and Mrs. Putnam are Democrats. 



ALEXANDER M. BEST 

In the state of Iowa Alexander M. Best, of Tulare county, Cal., 
was born April 23, 1867. He passed his boyhood and youth on a farm 
there and was educated in a public school near by. In April, 1888, 
when he was about twenty-one years old, he arrived in California and 
located on a ranch in Poway valley, twenty miles northeast of San 
Diego, where his father took up government land. For seven years he 
lived and farmed in San Diego county, then located in Orange county 
and lived at Santa Ana, and he also bought land at Newport. He 
farmed in that vicinity five years, on the San Joaquin three years, and 
at La Habra one year, and in October, 1901, came to Tulare county 
and bought the Jones ranch of one hundred and twenty acres, twelve 
miles east and two miles south of Tulare. After raising grain there 
four years, he sold the property and bought eighty acres a mile and a 
half west of town, a homestead of forty acres with forty acres adjoin- 
ing it at one corner, on which he put all imiirovements, including 
house, outbuildings, fences and roads. Until February, 1911, he con- 
ducted a dairy, but he then sold his cows, retaining his stock and 
horses, for the excellence of which his place is well known. He also 
gives attention to hogs and poultry. Thirty-five acres of his land is in 
alfalfa. 

December 3, 1894, Mr. Best married Susan Columbia Bardsley. of 
Poway valley, Cal., and they have a son named Edwin Bardsley Best. 
Fraternally Mr. Best is identified with the Woodmen of the World 
lodge of Tulare. Politically he has well defined ideas about all public 
questions and does his full duty as a citizen, but he has no liking for 
professional jiolitics and has never sought any elective or appointive 
office. He has at heart the welfare of the community and is generous 
in his encouragement of movements for the general good. 



622 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

J. L. TAYLOR 

The prosperous farmer and fruit grower of Three Rivers, Tulare 
county, Cal., whose career it is intended here hriefly to refer to, is a 
native of Fallbrook, Tenn., horn in 1846. In 1866, when he was twenty 
years old, he came to California and settled near Three Rivers and 
Lemon Cove and, having faith in the future of the state, he resolved 
to grow up with it, deserving his share in its prosperity. 

It was at ranch work for others that J. L. Taylor was employed 
until 1893. He became known as a hard and steady worker and as a 
man who saved his money, and in the year meutioned he was alile to 
buy one hundred and sixty-five acres of land, on which he has been. 
successful with fruit and grain. It was in the year 1893, the year in 
which he started for himself, that he married Miss Louise P^lizabeth 
Myrten, a native daughter of California, who in 1904 bore him a son, 
Edward, who is engaged with his father in conducting tlie ranch and 
developing the fruit and nursery business. Mr. Taylor has always 
been too busy to take much practical part in political work, but as a 
citizen he has performed his duties with the lialjot, voting always for 
such men and measures as in his opinion jjromised most and best for 
the general good. He has never petitioned for nor aceejated public 
office. Fraternally he affiliates with the Lemon Cove organization of 
Woodmen of the World. His father is living, retired from the activi- 
ties that once made him a factor in the u])]ift and advancement of the 
communitv. 



LUCIUS HERVEY TURNER 

The well known native of Tulare county whose name is above was 
born December 6, 1866, a sou of Peter Q. and Emily S. (Keener) 
Turner. His father was liorn in ILamjiton county, Va., February 15, 
1828, his mother in Missouri, December 9, 1843. The former lived in 
his native state until 1850, when he was about twenty-two years 
old. He then went to Ala1)anui and Mississippi, where he had more 
or less intercourse with Indians, and lived for a time in New Orleans, 
where he passed safely through a historic epidemic of cholera. At one 
time, believing he had lieen attacked by the disease, he found relief 
by drinking burned whiskey. It was during this early period of his 
life that he had his first experience with a stove. He took up his 
residence in Texas, where he married Miss McGlassen, of Texan 
l)irth, who died three months later. 

In 1858 he came from Texas to California, making the journey 
overland with oxen, a member of a jiarty of which his future father- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 623 

in-law, John I). Keener, was captain. At one time, while traveling a 
new route, they were without water for seventy-two hours. Mr. Tur- 
ner's tongue heoaine so swollen that he could not talk, all his com- 
panions suffered and one of them l)ecame temporarily insane. They 
came to Los Angeles in 1858, where they remained some time, 
selling their cattle. From Los Angeles they went to Visalia, where in 
July, LS61, Mr. Turner nuirried Miss family S. Keener, who bore him 
fifteen children : Nancy A., Peter Q., John H., Lucius H., Anna B., 
Edna M., Laura L, Charles A., Ida ("., Frank E., Marcus A., Elizabeth, 
Lottie, Ada C, and another who died in infancy. Nancy A. married 
J. A. Drake. John H. married Mary E. Dunham. Lucius H. married 
Grace Lenell, who has borne him three children. Anna B. married 
C. H. Foster and bore him four children, she died May 3U, 1889. Ida 
C. is the wife of J. E. Foster and they have seven children living. 
Frank E. married Idena Jones and they are the parents of four chil- 
dren. Marcus A. married Elsie Brothers and they have three children. 
p]lizabeth F. married H. B. Mitchell and has five children. Charles A. 
married Mary Mades. Lottie married George Fickle and has one 
child. Ada C. married J. G. Jones and they are the parents of two 
children. Peter Q., Edna M. and Laura I. have passed away. The 
father died at Dunlap June 6, 1883; the mother makes her home with 
her children. 

It was as a farmer and carpenter that Mr. Turner was instructed 
in the practical work by means of which he was destined to earn his 
living. His first purchase of land was of twenty acres. He later 
bought ten acres on which he now lives. Six acres of his land is de- 
voted to fruit and berries, the remainder to pasturage. Fraternally 
he affiliates with the Modern Woodmen of America, of which he is a 
charter member. His political affiliations are Socialistic. Mrs. Turner 
is a communicant of the Church of God. 



ERASTUS F. WARNER 

Well and favorably known in Tulare county, where he has been 
a resident since 1858, Erastus F. W^arner is jironiinently mentioned 
among the rejiresentative citizens of this section. He was born in 
Cambridge, Washington county, N. Y., October 24, 1842, the son of 
Cajitain Gerrit W. and Julia A. (Fenton) Warner, both natives of 
that state also. The news of the finding of gold in California 
brought Cai)tain Warner to the state in 1849, the voyage being made 
via the Horn in the vessel Morrison, lie was successful beyond his 
expectations in his mining exi)eri('nc(' on the middle fork of the Ameri- 
can river, and with the ipeans which he accumulated by his efforts he 
returned east for his family in 1S51. It was not until two years later. 



624 TULABE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

however, that he was able to settle his affairs in the east and make his 
second and last trip to California. The year 1853 found the family 
coming- to the west by way of Nicaragua. Settlement was made in San 
Jose, and that was the home of the family until the fall of 1855, when 
the father became interested in mining at Hornitas, Mariposa county, 
and subsequently he became, the proprietor of a hotel at Mariposa. 
January of 1858 found the family in Visalia, where the father con- 
tinued to follow the hotel business, being proprietor of the Exchange, 
the Eagle and the Esmeralda Hotels. Going to Porterville in 186.3 he 
opened a hostelry and also conducted a stage depot, a business which 
he followed ]n-ofltably until death ended his labors on June 1, 1865. 
His wife is also deceased, having passed away August 30, 1898. 

The parental family comprised three children, Mrs. Sarah M. 
Cousins and Frederick A., both deceased, and Erastus F., of this 
re\aew. At the time the family removed from the east to California in 
1853 the latter was a young lad and the experiences of the voyage 
made a lasting impression on his plastic mind. They left New York 
March 5 of that year and all went well until April 9, when their ship, 
the propeller steamship Lewis, was wrecked off Bodega bay. Total 
destruction threatened them, and although the ship was driven ashore 
and considerable damage done, no lives were lost. The passengers 
were finally taken aboard the Goliah and the steamer Active that 
were sent to their rescue from San Francisco, and thus they reached 
their destinatiou in safety. 

Throughout Tulare county Mr. "Warner is well known as an expert 
well borer, having followed this business for the past thirty-eight 
years. Considerable work of this character has been done for the 
Southern Pacific Railroad, ranging all the way from El Paso, Texas, 
to Salt Lake City, and he also made the Iwrings for setting the rail- 
road bridges all over the line. Mr. Warner's services are still in 
constant demand, and that his work is entirely satisfactory is 
e\'idenced in the fact that his reputation is county wide, and visible 
evidences of his work are as broadly scattered. In the early days he 
was a member of the volunteer fire department of Visalia, and he is 
still connected with the department as foreman of old Eureka Engine 
Company No. 1. He is an honorary member of the Volunteer Veteran 
Firemen of San Francisco, and fraternally is a member of Four Creek 
Lodge No. 94, I. 0. 0. F., having joined the order in 1866, and is also 
identified with Damascus Encampment No. 44, and Canton No. 24. 
His political sympathies are with the Republican party. 

The first marriage of Mr. W^arner occurred December 24, 1868, 
uniting him with Maud A. Baker, a native of Pennsylvania. She died 
in 1893, leaving one daughter, Mrs. Evelyn English. Mr. Warner's 
second marriage. May 21, 1903, united him with Mrs. Kitty (Schreiber) 
Horsnyder, a native of Kentucky. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 625 

EARL MATHEWSON 

Among the native sons of Tulare ooimtj'^ who are winning success 
as farmers is Earl Mathewson, who lives on the Exeter road, near 
Visalia. Arthur W. Mathewson, his father, married Miss Lueinda 
Tinkham in 1866, who was born in Iowa, daughter of Nathaniel Tink- 
ham, a native of Vermont, and bore her husband eight children, of 
whom five are living: Mrs. Pearl Ogden, Levi, Mrs. Edith M. Mosier, 
Earl and James A. A biographical sketch of the father has a place in 
these pages. Earl Mathewson was born near Farmersville, August 
28, 1876, and was educated in the public schools near his boyhood 
home. For a time he helped his father on the ranch, then made some 
money running cattle through the mountainous portion of Tulare 
county. 

In 1900 Mr. Mathewson rented of his mother a ranch of one 
hundred and fifty-one acres which he has since operated with much 
success. He has twenty acres of three-year-old French prunes, ten 
acres of Egj-ptian corn yielding a ton to an acre, and twelve acres 
under alfalfa. He makes a specialty of the breeding of cattle, horses 
and hogs and has produced some stock that is as fine as is to be seen 
in his vicinity. 

Fraternally Mr. Mathewson affiliates with the Woodmen of the 
World. In 1909 he married Miss Marie Holtoof, a native of Trinity 
county, Cal., and they have a son named Orley. As a citizen Mr. 
Mathewson is public-spiritedly heli)ful to all worthy local interests. 



WILLIAM F. BERNSTEIN 

As a baker and also as a stock-raiser William F. Bernstein 
has achieved a high standing in Kings county, Cal., and his bakery 
at Hanford and his stock farm near that town are among the best, 
each in its class, of their respective kinds in Central California. 
Mr. Bernstein was born in Ohio, near the old town of Lebanon, 
Warren county, in April, 1873, and there was reared to manhood 
and educated in common schools and at a normal school, and began 
teaching some years before he attained his majority. He was 
twenty-three when he came to Hanford and found emplo>anent in 
the bakery establishment of Fred Bader. Three years later he 
bought a one-half interest in the business and at the expiration of 
another three years he became its sole proprietor. Since then he 
has been its able manager and has developed it commensurately 
with the growth of the town. He handles a general line of first- 
class bakery goods and his ice-cream and candies have won a reputa- 



626 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

tion which keeps them in constant demand. His business occupies 
a two-story and basement building which takes up a ground space 
of 25 X 150 feet and employs in its various departments twenty-one 
skilled workers. 

Adjoining the city on the southeast is a ranch of six acres 
which is the property of Mr. Bernstein, and he owns forty acres 
located a mile west of the city on which he breeds thoroughbred 
registered Poland-China hogs, as well as saddle horses which are 
in high favor with discriminating users of animals bred and trained 
for such service. He has exhibited his thoroughbred hogs at various 
local fairs. His entire ranch is devoted to alfalfa and to the feeding 
and ( level oiunent of the stock mentioned. 

In the promotion and organization of the Kings County Chamber 
of Commerce Mr. Bernstein was influential, and he was elected its 
first president and re-elected to that office in December, 1911. In a 
fraternal way he affiliates with the Masons, being a Templar and a 
Shriner, and also with the Hanford Camp, Woodmen of the World. 
As a citizen he is helpful to all worthy local interests, ready at all 
times to do his full share in the encouragement of the develoi^ment 
of the town. He was married, May 28, 1902, to Mary Pearl Trew- 
hitt, who was born in Tennessee, but had been brought to Hanford 
by her parents. Her mother, Mrs. Elizabeth Trewhitt, is a resident 
of that citv. 



JOHN T. MORGAN 

Synonymous with the name of Mr. Morgan is the name of the 
Morgan's Market, of which he is the owner and proprietor, a thriv- 
ing enterprise in Visalia, which is known for the high character of 
the goods handled and for the excellent service rendered. From 
seven to ten employes are required in the conduct of the business, 
and two delivery wagons eual)le the owner to make prom])t delivery. 
All of the meats carried in the market are killed and prepared under 
the direct supervision of Mr. Morgan, whose slaughter house is 
located on the outskirts of town. 

A native son of California, John T. Morgan was born in San 
Bernardino in July, 1863, the son of Thomas and Eliza (Mee) 
Morgan, the former a native of Illinois and the latter of England. 
The Morgan family became established in California in 1859, when 
Thomas Morgan came hither from the middle west and settled in 
San Bernardino county. He was a man of versatility and ability, 
and in addition to carrying large personal interests he rendered 
invaluable service to the young and growing community in which 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 627 

he settled. He was elected and served acceptably as the first sheriff 
of San Bernardino county. He died in 1863. His wife was also a 
pioneer to the west, having crossed the plains from Utah at the 
time of the Mountain Meadow massacre. Reared and educated 
in his native county, at the age of fourteen years John T. Morgan 
went to Pinal county, Ariz., where he entered the employ of the 
Silver King Mining Company and also for several years worked in 
a butcher shop. This latter experience, combined with the knowl- 
edge of the business that he had acquired in his native county, led 
him to undertake a business of his own, and going to Riverside he 
opened and managed a meat market for Barker Brothers for four 
years. Subsequently he purchased the business and conducted it 
alone for four years. He then sold out and went to San Jacinto, 
where he opened and conducted a market until coming to Visalia 
in 1902. In that year he bought out the nucleus of the business 
which he owns today, then a small, unpretentious store, which in 
the meantime has expanded in business and reputation until it is 
now conceded to be one of the best appointed butchering establish- 
ments in the state, doing a wholesale and retail business. 

In April, 15)11, Mr. Morgan was honored by his fellow-citizens 
by election to the office of city trustee of Visalia, from the sixtli 
ward. He is a projierty owner and an influential member of a number 
of fraternal orders, l)eing a member of Four Creek Lodge No. 94, 
I. 0. O. F., Fraternal Brotherhood, Woodmen of the World, Foresters 
of America, and the Native Sons of the Golden West. He was 
married in 1891 to Miss Lillian R. Cleveland, who was born in Iowa, 
and they have three children, Everett C, Howard G., and J. Thomas. 
"\'^isalia has no more public-spirited citizen than Mr. Morgan, wlio is 
ever on the alert to promote the development of the city, as is indi- 
cated by his lil)eral assistance toward every worthy public movement. 



ALPHEUS C. WILLIAMS 

The present supervisor of the Third District of Tulare county, 
Cal., A. C. Williams, who lives at No. 420 N. Church street, Visalia, 
was born in Dent county. Mo., November 24, 18()8, and after leaving 
school became connected witli tlic train department of the St. Tjouis 
and San P^rancisco railroad. 

It was in 1891 that Mr. Williams came to California. Locating 
at Tulare city, he worked on different ranches near there for three 
years, then moved to six hundre*! and forty acres of laud east of 
Visalia, where lie engaged in grain farming, in whicli he was suc- 
cessful for some vears. In 1903 he established the Visalia Feed, 



628 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Fuel & Storage Co., au enterprise which under his management 
became one of the most important of its kind in Central California. 
For a considerable period he has been prominently identified with 
local political affairs and in 1908 he was elected super\isor to repre- 
sent the Third District of Tulare county, and it is worthy of note that 
he was the first Republican elected to that office by that constituency. 
How well he has served in that important capacity his fellow citi- 
zens well know and his record for efficiency and integrity is a 
most enviable one. Fraternally he is identified with the Independent 
Order of Odd Fellows. 

In 1893 Mr. Williams married Miss Mary Ellen Goad, daughter 
of John C. and C. Odele (DeBolt) Goad, the former of whom was 
born in Madisonville, Hopkins county, Ky. Two children were 
born to Mr. and Mrs. Williams, Ellen M. and Alpheus C, Jr. Mrs. 
Williams' father came across the plains to California in the early 
'60s, and lived in Nevada county imtil 1873, when he came to Tulare 
county and located on a ranch eight miles northeast of Visalia. He 
was one of the most prominent ranchers in the neighborhood of old 
Venus until his death, which occurred Sei^tember 25. 1905. When he 
was twenty-one he joined the Masonic order and was popular in 
those circles. His wife, whom he married in Grass Valley, Nevada 
coiinty, was a native of Ohio and passed away April 25, 1906. 
They were the parents of the following children: Pearl, Anna G. 
and Frank A., all deceased; J. E. Goad, of San Diego, the only 
living son; and Mary Ellen, who is now Mrs. Williams. 



IRA BLOSSOM 

Among the early jiioneers of Tulare county who have become 
successful ranchmen is Ira Blossom, who was born in 1832 in 
the state of New York. He grew to manhood and was educated in 
the Empire State and in 1852, when he was twenty years old, 
sought his fortune in California. For a time be stayed in San 
Francisco, and from there he went to Stockton and soon went into 
the mines, where he worked a year. After that he lived six years in 
the San Joaquin valley. In 1860 he moved to Tulare county and 
during the ensuing six years assisted in the operation of a flour 
mill near Visalia. Next we find him located on South Fork river, 
in a section of Tulare county in which he has since made his home. 
His first land purchase was a tract of eight hundred acres on which 
he lived for a time, but which eventually he sold in order to buy 
land near Three Rivers, where he has lived during the past decade. 

In 1860 Mr. Blossom married Mrs. Julia Clough, and they have 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 629 

four children, three of wliom are living. One of their daughters 
lives in Sau Francisco, the other in Mt. View, Cal., and their son 
is with his parents on their family homestead. The latter is filling 
the office of deputy park ranger, the duties of which he is performing 
with much ability and credit. 

The present laud lioldiugs of Mr. Blossom aggregate one hun- 
dred and thirty-five acres, part of it in fruit and most of the 
remainder in grain. He has given part of his time to stock-raising, 
in which he has achieved considerable success, and is regarded as 
one of the old reliable farmers of his district, being honored by 
the people of Tulare county as one of their few remaining pioneers. 
His personal characteristics are of the kind that make men popular 
with their fellows and many a man who has had the benefit of his 
acquaintance has found in him a valued friend. He never held 
office or identified himself with any order, but is public-spirited 
in support of all worthy interests of the community. 



J. A. CRAWSHAW, M.D. 

While giving attention to general practice Dr. J. A. Crawshaw 
specializes along lines safely and sanely within the limits of the 
field of the family physician. His residence and office are in the 
Bissell Building, Hanford, Kings county, Cal. Born Aiagust 10, 
1879, at Carbondale, 111., he was there educated in the public 
schools and in the state normal school in the usual courses of such 
institutions. When advanced sufficiently in his professional studies, 
he matriculated in the medical department of the University of 
Illinois at Chicago in 1901, and after passing the prescribed exam- 
inations was duly graduated therefrom with the degree of M.D., 
June 5, 1905. After eighteen months devoted to the practice of his 
profession at Murphysboro, 111., he came in 1907 to Hanford, where 
he has since prospered increasingly as a general practitioner of 
medicine and surgery, specializing in diseases of the eye, ear, nose 
and throat. 

Dr. Crawshaw is a director of the Hanford Sanitorium, which 
he helped to organize and which is now in the course of construc- 
tion. It is a modern structure, costing $30,000, and is to be com- 
pleted February 1, 1913. The Doctor holds membership in the 
Fresno Medical Society, the San Joaquin Medical Society and the 
California State Medical Society. He is identified with the Kings 
County Auto Association, is a Blue Lodge, Royal Arch and Eastern 
Star Mason, a Forester of America and a member of the Inde- 
pendent Order of Foresters and its ladies' auxiliary order, a 



630 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Modern Woodman, a member of the order of Fraternal Aid and of 
the Portuguese orders of U. P. E. C. and of I. D. E. S. In all of 
these societies he takes a helpful interest, greeting their members 
in fraternal brotherhood and advancing their many good works in 
every way possible. 

Beside his professional work Dr. Crawshaw has found some 
time to devote to other interests, notably to ranching. He owns a 
farm of one hundred acres, eight miles north of Hanford, all 
under irrigation and devoted to stock-raising. At this time he is 
arranging to give special attention to the breeding of mules. 

In 1904 Dr. Crawshaw married Miss Bessie Hagler, who was 
then a resident of Illinois. They have an interesting little daughter 
named Alleen. 

The Doctor, althougli an adopted son of California and a 
comparatively late arrival to the city of Hanford, yet enters heart- 
ily into the political and social life of Kings county. He took part 
in the program of the "Kings County Karnival" in May, 1911, and 
rendered an original poem cm the liirth of Kings county, from which 
we quote the following: 

" 'Twas in the spring of ninety-three, 
In the county then of Tu-lar-e. 
With division talk on every tongue. 
That the battle of politics was sprung. 
Fast the missiles flew each way, 
Until the twenty-third of May, 
When Captain Blakely with his dart 
Plunged the weapon in tlieir heart. 

"With the sun still shining in the skies, 
And the tears undried in the mother's eyes, 
Out from the wounded, bleeding heart. 
The "Baby County" made a start, 
To spread afar its honored fame 
And win itself a Christian name. 
Whose echo o'er the plain would ring, 
In honor of our Babv King." 



CHARLES E. JOYNER 

In the country round about Exeter, Tulare county, Cal., there 
are few citizens who are more highly regarded than is Charles E. 
Joyner, a native of Tennessee, born in 1859. who came to California 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES (531 

in 1872, when he was thirteen years old. It sliould he noted tliat he 
came here simply as a visitor, expecting- soon to return to his old liome 
and that excei)t for hrief absences he has remained here ever since. 
He grew to manhood on tlic J. H. Johnson rancji and finished his 
education in the public sciiools in that neighborhood. He was an 
orphan, his mother having died when he was an infant, his father 
when he was but a small boy, hut he found friendship and encour- 
agement under the sunny California skies and set his face bravely 
toward the future. He may be said to have made his way in the 
world since he was a mere boy. In 1884 he married Catherine 
Mabrey, a native of Arkansas, who has borne him seven children, 
all of whom are being educated in the public schools near their home. 
Fruit has engaged Mr. Joyner's attention and he has thirty- 
five acres in three-year-old navel oranges. Formerly he raised grain. 
His land cost him about $2.50 an acre and at a fair market valuation 
it is worth today $700 an acre. He has prospered, and in so doing 
has generously conceded the right of the community at large to do 
as well. While he is very public-spirited, he cares little for prac- 
tical politics and has steadfastly refused office. 



JOSEPH W. LOVELACE 

A native of the Lone Star State, born in Fannin county, in 
1858, Josejah "W. Lovelace, now living at No. 502 S. Church street, 
Visalia, is a son of John W. and Arminta (Stallard) Lovelace, natives 
respectively of North Carolina and of Tennessee. The family came 
to California, members of a party that came across the plains with 
ox-teams and seventy-five wagons, consuming six months in the 
journey. Coming over the southern route, they stopped in the fall 
of 1861 at Bakersfield, where John W. Lovelace Iniilt a small cabin, 
which in the following winter was swei)t away liy a flood. After the 
breaking up of their home there they moved to El Monte, Los 
Angeles county, where they lived until they removed to Tulare 
county in 1863. The father fought through the Civil war in Gen. 
Sterling Price's Confederate army. After receiving his discharge, 
he brought his family back to Tulare county and engaged in mer- 
chandising at Farmersville, where he bought the store of Crowley 
& Jasper and formed a partnership with T. J. Brundage. He 
interested himself also in stock-raising and in 186!) took up a stock 
ranch at Three Rivers which he improved. Returning eventually to 
Texas, he died there in 1875; his wife also has passed away. During 
his residence at El ^lonte, Los Angeles coimty, this ))ioneer became 
a member of the local lodge of Free and Accepted Masons. As a 



632 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

citizen he was public-spii'ited and helpful to all good interests of 
the community. 

Follomng are the names of the living children of John W. 
and Arminta (Stallard) Lovelace: Martin F., Charles P., Willis R. 
and Joseph W. The last named was but a lad when his father 
brought his family to Tulare county during the war of the states. 
He grew to manhood at Visalia and there finished his schooling. 
For twelve years he was engaged in stock-raising in the Three Riv- 
ers district of Tulare county, and in 19U0 he moved to Visalia iu order 
to give his children better educational training. He is interested in 
real estate in that city and owns besides a one hundred and twenty 
acre grain ranch fifteen miles east of Lemon Cove. Socially he 
affiliates with the Woodmen of the World. He married, in Texas, 
Miss Helen Schliehtiug, a native of Wisconsin, who has borne him 
children as follows : Byron 0., county surveyor of Tulare county ; 
Nathaniel F. ; Clay ; Walter ; and Lee. Mr. Lovelace is well known 
for his helpful public spirit. 

Mr. Lovelace's deceased brothers and sisters were: Mollie, 
who died about the year 1884, was the wife of the late Hon. J. C. 
Brown, who represented Tulare county iu the legislature several 
times and was a member of the Constitutional committee which 
revised the state constitution of California in 1876; John Aimer, 
who was married, died in Texas in 1889; and Lillian Josephine, 
who also was married, died in Texas in 1882, leaving no children. 



JOHN CHATTEN 

A resident of California from 1868 to 1907, when he passed 
away, the late John Chatten was of English extraction and a native 
of Canada. Thomas Chatten, his grandfather, brought his family 
from Norfolk, Eng., and settled in Ontario, where his son Robert 
Chatten, father of John, farmed near Colborne till 1896, when he 
died aged seventy-eight. Robert's wife, Betsy Doe, a native of 
Ontario, died there aged seventy-two. She was of English ancestry, 
a daughter of James Doe, who was a Canadian settler and farmer. 
John Chatten was their second oldest child and the oldest son in 
a family of nine children, all of whom attained to maturity. He 
was born near Colborne, Northumberland county, Ont., December 
8, 1848, and grew up where the work was hard and the living not 
the best. From the time he was eleven, when he was taken out of 
school, he worked on the farm and one of his tiresome and painful 
tasks was the picking i\\) of stones, which made his back ache and 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 633 

wore the skin off his fingers. His nncle Eichard Chatten had come 
to California as a 41)er, and his accounts of the climate and the 
ease with which a living might be earned or a competency secured 
were alluring reading to the folks in the bleak Canadian backwoods. 
This finally lured John Chatten to the state and for two years after 
his arrival he worked for his uncle. After his marriage he took 
up independent farming and stock-raising on one hundred and fifty 
acres of his uncle's land, and a year later bought an unimproved 
tract which he transformed into an attractive homestead. 

More than ordinary success rewarded Mr. Chatten's efforts as 
a farmer, and late in life he made a profitable specialty of dairying. 
His activity in local affairs was displayed in efficient service as a 
member of the county central committee of his party, and his interest 
in education impelled him to accept the trusteeship of the Elbow 
school district, the duties of which he discharged for thirty years, 
assisting to build a school house and to put the home school on a 
firm and substantial basis. Other praiseworthy measures were 
given his aid and counsel, and he was recognized as one of the 
leading men of the county. 

Miss Celeste Eeynolds, who became the wife of Mr. Chatten 
December 11, 1870, was born in Iowa and brought across the plains 
to California by her parents when she was but seven months old. 
They came in an ox-train and seven months were consumed in the 
journey. Her entire life in California has been lived in Tulare 
coimty. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Chatten were: Wesley-, an 
engraver in Portland, Ore. ; Arthur ; Wilmot L. ; Eay, deceased ; 
Fred, and Elsie. The family residence was built in 1903 and the 
homestead includes a hundred and seventy-two acres on Elbow creek, 
irrigated by the Wutchumna ditch, Mr. Chatten having been a direc- 
tor in the ditch company. Every acre of this homestead is tillable, 
and he also owned a quarter-section of adjoining land which he 
devoted to grazing. 

The third in order of birth of the children of John and Celeste 
(Ee\-nolds) Chatten, Wilmot L. Chatten was born near Visalia, 
November 11, 1878. He liegan his active career by ranching with 
his father. In 1902 he bought land, which he farmed until after his 
father's death. He now rents of his mother the home place and the 
adjoining land. He has twenty-five acres in barley and twenty acres 
in alfalfa, the remainder being pasture, and he maintains a dairy of 
twenty cows and keeps an a\-erage of about a hundred hogs. His 
family orchard is one of the best in its vicinity, and he gives some 
attention to chicken-raising. He is a man of public spirit and, as 
was his father, is a Eepublican. In 1902 he married Miss lola 
Fudge, daughter of William Eudge, an early settler in the county. 
They have two children, Meredith and Dallas. 



634 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

HARRISON A. POWELL 

Most of the sons of Kentucky who have come to California have 
developed into citizens of whom Californians are proud and they 
have exacted from California the full reward of enterprise and 
industry. This is true in the case of Harrison A. Powell, one of the 
best known citizens in the Exeter district in Tulare county, who 
was born in Henderson county, Ky., August 11, 1859, and lived 
there until 1902. He came to California at this time and located at 
Exeter, where he has made his home up to this time. He had passed 
the earlier years of his life as a farmer and it was but natural that 
he should have continued here to woo fortune after the manner of 
his youth. But at first he had not the capital with which to establish 
himself as he planned to do. He went to work, saved money and 
invested it in land, and while the land was increasing in value added 
to his fund by continuing his labors. Then when the land was worth 
selling he converted it into money and put the money where it 
would draw interest, and as a financier he has perhaps prospered as 
well as he would have done had he carried out his original intention 
to become a farmer. 

In 1879 Mr. Powell married Leurah Cottingham, a native of 
Kentucky, and they had six children : Chester E., Ernest C., Judith A., 
Mary, Rhea and Earl. Mrs. Powell died in 1891 and in 1909 Mr. 
Powell married (second) Martha Ficklen, a native of Missouri. 
His father was born in Virginia, while his mother was a native of 
Kentucky. He is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fel- 
lows, affiliating with both lodge and encampment, and was vice 
grand of his lodge in 1911. Politically he adheres to the Democratic 
faith. Having at heart the welfare of the community, he is public- 
spirited in such measure as to make for the very best citizenshi]:). 
He is essentially a self-made man who has prospered by industry 
and frugality at the expense of his brain and brawn and not to the 
cost of any of his fellow citizens. Some idea of his quality may be 
inferred from his recent assertion, not boastful yet delivered with 
an air of satisfaction: "I am fifty-three years of age and have 
never been under the influence of liquor." 



WILLIAM WHITAKER 

In Connecticut William Whitaker, now of the Dinuba district in 
Tulare eoimty, Cal., was born in November, 1833. His start in 
business life was as- an axe-maker. Later he manufactured clothes- 
pin.s until about the time of the beginning of the Civil War. Re- 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 635 

sponding to Presideut Lincoln's first oall for seventy-five tlionsaud 
three months' troops, he enlisted in the First Regiment, New Hamp- 
shire Volunteer Infantry, and was mustered into the service of the 
United States at Concord, N. li., in April, 1861. Later he re- 
enlisted in the Fifth Regiment, New Hampshire Volunteer Infantry, 
and served until the close of the war. During the period of his 
service he held all ranks from private to captain of his company, 
having been commissioned for the latter office just before his dis- 
charge. His first experience in battle was in June, 1861, and he was 
in thirty regular engagements with the Army of the Potomac, in- 
cluding the fighting at Petersburg and Oettysburg and in many skirm- 
ishes, passing through many perils, not the least of which were 
those incident to an explosion which he is not likely ever to forget. 
After the war he engaged in the lumber and sawmill business in 
Ashford, Conn. Later he devoted himself to farming, which he fol- 
lowed there until in 1899, when he came to Tulare county, where he 
has since made his home. His first purchase of land here was five 
acres, which he has since sold in town lots from time to time. He 
owned twenty acres at Yettem, eleven of which is in Muscat grapes, 
also five acres of Malagas. At this time he is practically retired 
from active business life. He keeps alive memories of the Civil 
war by membership with Shaffer Post No. 92, G. A. R. Politically 
he is a Socialist. In his religious affiliation he is a Seventh Day 
Adventist. Besides his home at Dinuba he is the owner of consid- 
erable valuable property in the East. His brother Edward W. 
Whitaker was promoted froiu his original place as ]irivate in the 
ranks, by successive advancements, to the office of brigadier-general 
in the I'ederal army in the Civil war and is now stationed at Wash- 
ington, D. C. Daniel Whitaker, another of his brothers, rose to be 
a cai^tain and was killed June 17, 1863. He had another brother, 
George, in the Union Army, enlisting from California. Another 
brother, Horace Whitaker, who died in Stokes valley in October, 
1910, unmarried, came to California in 1856, via Isthmus of Panama. 
He followed the stock business in Tulare county from 1858, and 
became a well known factor tbi-oughout the county, having won a 
suit over land title from the Southern Pacific Railway Com]>any 
after being in litigation about twenty years. 

In 1866 Mr. Whitaker married Ada Ferguson, a native of Penn- 
sylvania and she bore him six children: Mary J. married Wilbur 
Devoll and has four children. Ada became Mrs. Clifton Wright and 
died leaving three children. Eva married Clifton Church and they 
have two children. Etta mai-ricd Charles McDonald and tliey have 
three children. Helen is Mrs. William Ileffron, who is the only one 
of the children residing in California. Jesse L., the fourtli in order 



636 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

of birth and the only son, met an accidental death in December, 1909. 
The wife and mother passed away in 1899 and in 1901 Mr. Whitaker 
married Mrs. Frances C. "White. 



HANFORD NATIONAL BANK 

This well established and dependable institution, one of the 
strong and popular banks of Kings county, Cal., was organized in 
May. 1903, was incorporated in the following month, and was opened 
for business July 28, that year. Its savings department, known as 
the Peoples Savings Bank, was organized November 1, 1903. 

The first president of the bank was Dr. N. P. Duncan, who 
died February 15, 1905, and he was succeeded by W. V. Buckner. 
Its original vice-president died and was succeeded by Charles A. 
Kimball ; H. E. Wright was cashier, S. E. Railsback, assistant cashier. 
The capital stock of the Hanford National Bank was $50,000. all 
paid in, and the capital stock of the Peoples Savings Bank was $25,000, 
$12,500 of which was paid in at the time of its organization, and 
the remainder of which was paid two years later. The board of 
directors serves for both banks and is constituted as follows: W. V. 
Buckner, L. Hansen, Charles A. Kimball, S. E. Railsback and H. E. 
Wright. 

The cashier and manager of this bank, Harland E. Wright, is 
represented in a biographical sketch in this work. He came to Han- 
ford as assistant cashier of the Farmers and Merchants Bank and 
soon became cashier. In 1903 he sold out his interest in that liank, 
in which he had become the largest stockholder, in order to promote 
the organization of the Hanford National Bank. Mr. Railsback is 
still assistant cashier. 



SIDNEY H. WOOKEY 

Among Hanford 's most progressive business men is Sidney H. 
Wookey, proprietor of an enterprising hay and feed trade. It was 
at Fond du Lac, Wis., that Mr. Wookey was born November 19, 
1861, and there he grew to manhood and obtained his education both 
in books and in the business which engaged his attention for many 
years. He began his active career in his native town as a contrac- 
tor and builder and engaged also in the fuel trade. The latter became 
his sole business and he followed it with success until October, 1901, 
when he again turned his attention to contracting and building until 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 637 

1906, when he located at Hanford,whei-e he established a wood-yard 
and oijerated it until July, 1911, then selling it to the Hanford Fuel 
Company. 

The retail hay and feed trade at Hanford now commands Mr. 
Wookey's ability and attention. His warehouse, which he erected in 
August, 1911, occupies a ground space of forty by ninety feet and af- 
fords storage for three hundred tons of hay. With his office, it con- 
stitutes a thoroughly adequate and up-to-date business plant, well 
appointed in every detail and equipped for the successful transac- 
tion of his large and constantly growing enterprise. 

By his personal geniality and his "live and let-live" business 
methods Mr. Wookey has commended himself to the good opinion of 
the people living at Hanford and throughout its tributary territory, 
and the success which he has obtained is popularly regarded as but 
an earnest of the still greatei- successes which will come to him in 
the future. As a citizen he has in many ways manifested his loyalty 
and public spirit, and his neighbors at Hanford Mnd him ever read}' 
to yield generous support to any measure proposed for the develop- 
ment of the town or for the improvement of general conditions 
through the introduction of such economic provisions as seem to him 
possible. He is a member of the Modern Woodmen of America. 



BENJAMIN DONAGER, Sk. 

Natives of Ireland have always been peculiarly welcome as immi- 
grants to this country and their prosperity here has equaled that of 
our native-born citizens. One of those who have been successful in 
the quest for home and pros]>erity in Kings county, Cal., was the late 
Benjamin Donager, whose widow and son own and operate the New 
Method Laundry in Hanford. Mr. Donager came to the United 
States in 1874 and after stopping for a time in Sacramento, came on 
to Tulare county and located at the site of Hanford, in the portion 
of that old county which is now known as Kings county. At that time 
Hanford had just been platted and offered for sale in lots convenient 
for building purposes. Mr. Donager became the local station agent 
for the Southern Pacific Railroad Company and filled that position 
ably and honoralily until September 25, 1882, when he died. His 
marriage occurred in 1879 to Miss Hattie Coe, a daughter of Julius 
T. Coe. 

It will be of interest here to say something of the career of Mrs. 
Donager 's father. Julius T. Coe was born in Fulton county, N. Y., 
where he farmed in early life and later manufactured gloves. In 1874 
he was attracted to California as offering a field for larger oj^por- 



638 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

tunities and brought his family to a farm near Vacaville. Solano 
county. In 1876 he came to a tract of government land two miles 
south of the site of Hanford and his original purchase of one hun- 
dred and sixty acres of land was increased by the acquisition of other 
tracts until he owned two hundred and forty acres, which he managed 
and cultivated with fair success and which was his home until in 
1884, when he died, aged sixty-four years. In his religious belief he 
was a Presbyterian, and politically he allied himself with the Ee- 
publican party. His wife, who before their marriage was Miss Cath- 
erine Simpson, also a native of Fulton county, N. Y., survived him. 
making her home in Hanford, until 1909. 

To Mr. and Mrs. Donager was born a son Benjamin, Jr., June 
10, 1880. He began his education in the public schools in Hanford, 
continued it at Santa Ci'uz and at Oakland, and took a commercial 
course at Heald's Business College. He then found employment for 
two years with George AVest & Son and later for three years with 
Schnerger & Downing. In 1906 he married Miss Frances Kuntz of 
Hanford. Fraternally he affiliates with the Hanford organizations 
of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Improved Order 
of Red Men, the "Woodmen of the World and the Native Sons of the 
Golden West. 

In 1906 Mrs. Donager and her son started their enterprise, the 
New Method Laundry, installing it in a building fifty by ninety-two 
feet, which was erected for the purpose. It is a modern, well-ap- 
pointed structure, occupied entirely by their flourishing and constantly 
growing business. Besides doing fine laundry work they have a 
cleaning and pressing line. Their methods and machinery are thor- 
oughly up-to-date; they employ only experienced help and their rela- 
tions with the public are based on the idea of the square deal. Their 
prosperity is in every way richly deserved. 



FREEMAN RICHARDSON 

Di;ring the last half century the laundry business has been 
developed to proportions which make it. in its peculiar way, one of 
the important industrial interests of the country. Among tlie lead- 
ers in this industry are many Californians, and among the best 
known of these in the central part of the state is Freeman Richardson, 
proprietor of the Hanford Steam Laundry, an auxiliary feature of 
which is his establishment for the cleaning and pressing of tailor-made 
clothing. 

Mr. Richardson first saw the light of day in 1868, over the Cana- 
dian border line, in New Brunswick. There he was reared and edu- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 639 

cated and from there he came in 1889, when he was about twenty- 
one years old, to California, locating at Fresno, where he worked 
in a laundry until 1893. He then made his advent in Hanford and 
established the Hanford Steam Laundry, until 1900 occupying quarters 
on Front street, which by that time became too small for his enter- 
prise, and he then moved into his present principal building on West 
Seventh street. Later he erected an adjoining building and now has 
a ground space of tifty-eight by one hundred feet, equipped with 
modern machinery which is 0])erated only by skillful laundry workers. 
His pressing and cleaning ])lant for gasoline work is located on 
Second street, beyond the fire limit, and his laundry work as well 
as cleaning and pressing process are equally satisfactory to his large 
and growing list of patrons. 

In 1903 Mr. Richardson married Miss Lola Manning of Han- 
ford and they have a daughter named Mary Eleanor. Fraternally, 
he is a Knight of Pytliias and a member of the Benevolent and Pro- 
tective Order of Elks. As a citizen he has proven himself to be 
most patriotic and public spirited. 



J. GRABOW 

In the promotion of irrigation in central California the sinking 
of wells is an important factor and among the enterprising men 
giving attention to this industry is J. Grabow, of Hanford, Kings 
county, a native of Denmark, born in 18-11, who came to the United 
States in 1881. He had learned the trade of well borer in his native 
country; his first employment here was as a farm hand, but it was 
not long before he was called upon to help bore for water, and the 
possibilities of well-drilling at once became apparent to him. Lo- 
cating at Paso Robles, he gave his attention to this work and was 
one of the first, if not the first, in the state to develop water by 
the hydraulic process for domestic use. He operated in that vicin- 
ity until 1903, then came to Hanford, where he has devoted himself 
to well-boring on a larger scale than before, having put down more 
than a thousand wells, among which were those of the Ogdens, the 
Armona Winery, Dr. Miller (on his dairy ranch), Mecfussel (of 
Hardwick), Richards (of (xrangeville), fourteen on the Floribel ranch 
and others, all of which have been so successful in operation that 
they have attracted wide attention to his enterprise. Mr. Grabow 
finds that in this vicinity good water for domestic uses is reached 
sixty to one hundred feet below the surface of the ground. 

In 1876 Mr. Grabow married Miss Nanny Heger, a native of 
Sweden, who has borne him seven children: Fannie is a school 



640 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

teacher at Coaliuga; Hans is his father's assistant in the latter's 
well-drilling operations; Ellen married Fred Donohoo; Esther is a 
student at the Conservatory of Music at San Jose; two died in in- 
fancy; and Anna died at the age of twenty-one years. 

The progressive spirit which has marked Mr. Grabow's per- 
sistent development of his enterprise commends him to the general 
public as one of the leading business men in the country round 
about Hanford. He has established a shop in which, during the 
past two years, he has made all the casing he has used in his wells. 
The metal which he most favors for use for this purpose is gal- 
vanized iron. In municipal atfairs he favors and supports those 
measures for the betterment of local interests, and has come to l)e 
known as a most helpful and u]i-to-date citizen, who has the welfare 
of the comumnitv at heart. 



NAPOLEON PETER KANAWYER 

Peter Kanawyer. the first of the name to come to California, 
brought hither his son, Napoleon Peter Kanawyer, when he was a 
lad of fourteen years. He was born in Indiana in December, 184!), 
and was a small child when the family moved to the frontier of 
Iowa and from that state came to California. The family settled 
near Sacramento and later were pioneers at Grang•e^^lle in Kings 
county, where they became well and favorably known. Mr. Kanaw^'er 
married Viola Blunt and she bore him three children. Napoleon mar- 
ried Cisly Collins and they have seven children : Napoleon. Doris, 
Cyril, Gertrude, Mervin, and twin babies, and they reside at Sanger in 
Fresno county. Thomas is next in order. Frances is the wife of Jay 
Robinson. Mr. Kanaw^-er died in 1908. 

Thomas Kanawyer, the second son, was born in Tulare county, 
the part now set aside as Kings county, on September "2(1, 1879. He 
was reared and educated in the common schools and with the family 
moved to Fresno county, settling near Dunlap. He married Miss 
Margaret Main, born in Fresno county February 20, 1882. They are 
the parents of two children, Viola Frances and Margaret Ruth. In 
1910 Thomas Kanawyer purchased three hundred and ninety-five 
acres of land which he is clearing and developing. One hundred 
and twenty acres of it is tillable and the balance is in timber and 
pasture. He keeps aboiit one hundred head of stock on his place 
and has about thirty-five hundred cords of marketable wood. 

With his mother he is the owner of several jenneys which are used 
for pack animals, and he is otherwise assisting his mother in the 
care of the family homestead. As a farmer he has won a place for 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 641 

himself in his neighborhood and as a citizen lias proven his worth 
as heli)ful to tlie general interests. He is a Republican in politics 
but has never sought office. Like his father, who was a well known 
citizen, he is giving his attention to the building up of his own for- 
tunes and in aiding [niblic movements to the best of his ability. 



HARVEY N. DENNY 

Born in Putnam county, Ind., June 25, 1834, Harvey N. Denny, 
whose residence is now at No. 602 North Church street, Visalia, 
Tuhire county, Cal., passed his early life on a farm in his native 
state. He and two of his brothers did duty as soldiers in the Federal 
army in the Civil war. Enlisting in the Fifty-first Regiment, Indiana 
Volunteer Infantry, he sei'ved under Major-General George H. 
Thomas until he was nmstered out at Nashville, Tenn., Jime 18, 1865, 
during his service participating in many historic battles and in 
numerous minor engagements. Returning to his old home in In- 
diana he was given charge of the old Denny homestead, which he 
operated six years, clearing $1,000 annually. 

In 1870 Mr. Denny married Miss Melissa D. Iloskins. His wife's 
health failing, he sought relief for her in California, arriving in the 
spring of 1873, and here for twenty years, until his retirement a 
few years ago, he was engaged successfully in the undertaking- 
business at Visalia. Mrs. Denny died in March, 1875, leaving a 
daughter, Carrie A. In a iiatriotic way Mr. Denny is deeply inter- 
ested in everything that makes for the betterment of the community, 
He is a charter member of the Visalia organization of the Grand 
Armv of the Republic and because of his many sterling qualities of 
head and heart is popular with the leading citizens of all sections 
of the countv. 



C. E. FREEMAN 

In Boone county. Mo., whicli has given several promineiil citi- 
zens to this iiait of California, Clorie Elmer Freeman lias born 
March 20, 187!>. When he was aI)out twenty years old he i-ame to 
Caiifoi-nia. His parents, James Monroe and Sarah Roxanna (Green") 
Freeman, natives of Missouri, are living in Callaway county. His 
fatlier enlisted in 1862 in a Confederale regiment imder Cajttaiii 
Price and served in the infaTitiy until the end of the Civil war. 

When C. E. Freeman ari-ixcil at Dimiba, which is now a town of 



M-2 TULARK AND KINGS C'OUNTIES 

two thousand people, he found only one hotel, two general merchan- 
dise stores, a drug store, a livery barn and a few dwellings. The 
eountry round about was all under grain and the fields stretched 
clear down to the village limits. In 1!>()2 Mr. Freeman bought fifteen 
acres near Orosi at $50 an acre. It was just plain wheat land with 
no vines. He has since planted thirteen acres to graj)es, eight to 
Muscats, five to Hultanas, and in 1911 he sold eight-and-a-half tons 
of Muscats and five of Sultanas. He keejis ten liead of live stock 
and has a small family orchard. Among tlie many improvements 
which he has witnessed in the country round about has been the 
introduction of a telephone system. When he came tliei-e was not 
a yard of telephone wire to l)e seen in any direction and now neai ly 
every house is reached by this means. 

In his politics Mr. Freeman is a Democrat, devoted heart and 
soul to the principles of his jiarty. He and Mrs. Freeman are mem- 
bers of the Baptist church. She was Miss Lena Johnson, a native of 
Missouri, and they were nuii'rieil in Visalia in lil()4. Tliey have one 
daughter, Grace Ellen. 



EARL POWERS FOSTER 

Xot only a native Califoruian but a native of Tulare county, 
where he now lives, Earl Powers Foster was born November 4, 
1867. the oldest of the six children of Leander P. and Hattie (Muu- 
son) Foster, four of whom survive. His father, who first saw the 
light of day in W'linont, settled early in life on a stock ranch in 
Tulare county, but later moved to a farm of three hundred and 
twenty acres near Atlanta, San Joaquin county, where he grew 
grain until in 1875, when he died. His wife. Miss Munson, wIkuu 
he married in California, was a native of Maine. She came to the 
coast in her girlhood with Nathan Munson, her father, who lived 
out his days and passed away in Humboldt county. For some years 
she has made her home at Pacific Gi'ove. She died November 
26, 1912. 

Only eiglit years old when his father died. Earl Powers Foster grew 
to manhood and gained a knowledge of farming on the Foster home- 
stead near Atlanta and later was a student at Woodbridge College. 
He came to Tulare county in 1894 and engaged in stockfarming and 
grain raising in which he has since been successful. He rented two 
thousand acres, two miles and a half southeast of Tulare, the 
pro]iert>' of James Turner, of San Joaquin county and iio]iularly 
known as the Turner ranch. He farms six hundred and forty 
acres to grain, summer-fallows about two hundred and fifty acres a 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 643 

year and uses the remainder of the property for pasturage, earry- 
ino- al)out one Imndred liead of l-ows year after year. 

The marriage, in 18S)2, of Mr. Foster and Sarah, daughter of 
James Turner and a native of San Joaquin county, has resulted in 
the liirth of three sons, James, Powers and Forest P^rederick. 
Theii- wedding was celebrated at French Camp, San Joaquin county. 
This California family of Turners was founded by John Turner, 
an Englishman, who settled in San Joaquin county, lived afterward 
in Stanislaus county and died in Tulare county at the advanced age 
of ninety-two years. His son James was a California pioneer of 
1850, who came into this country with a party that had made its 
way across the jilains with an ox-team outfit. In his first winter here 
the mines yielded him $400, but he later engaged in teaming and 
in the s]iring of 1852 settled on a (]uarter section of land near Stock- 
ton, wliich he bought. He now owns two thousand acres of tillable 
land there, on a part of which he makes his home. In his politics he 
is a Rejniblican, in his religion a Methodist. His wife was Hannah 
Blosser, a native of Pennsylvania, who died on their California home- 
stead in 1882. Jacob Blosser, her father, came overland from the 
east with oxen in 1850 and settled on raw land in San Joa«|uin 
county, and the closing years of his life were passed in Mendocino 
county. 

Fraternally Mr. Foster affiliates with the Woodmen of the 
"World and with the order of I'raternal Aid, holding membership 
in local organizations of these bodies whose .stated meetings are 
held in Tulare. He has achieved remarkable success in his efficient 
handling of such extensive tracts of land and has taken rank among 
the leading business men in this part of the county, and is known 
to his fellow citizens as a man of public spirit who aids to the 
extent of his ability every measure proposed for the general u])lift 
or for the advancement of tlie pros]ierity of his comnuuiity. 



R. M. GRAHAM 

It was in the Hoosiei' State that R. M. Graham was born in 
184!). In the years of his young manhood he was a successful school 
teacher, then for many years he published the Boonville Standard, 
a weekly ])aper, at Boonville, in his native state, disposing of it in 
1880 to come to California. Here, finding no opening in the jiub- 
lishing line, he worked by the day on ranches and as a carjienter 
until eight years ago, when he went into the real estate business at 
Visalia, maintaining his residence at Lindsay. Three years later he 
established his office at Lindsav, where he has done a successful 



644 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

business to the present time. He has a beautiful orange grove of 
twenty-five acres and has given considerable attention to the growth 
of olives. As a citizen he is public-spirited to an eminent degree, 
and in a business way and otherwise he has done much for the pro- 
motion of the best interests of the community. In 1873 he married 
Miss Mary J. Hunsaker, a native of Indiana, who has borne him 
two children, one of whom has passed away. Joseph B. Graham, Ms 
father, was a native of Ohio; his mother was born in Pennsylvania; 
both have passed away. He is the present city recorder of Lindsay, 
which office he has held since the summer of 1912. "When he ac- 
cepted this office he resigned as a member of the Board of Health 
of Liudsay. He is also es-jDresident of the Board of Trade and has 
ably tilled the office of justice of the peace. Fraternally he has 
affiliated with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows of Lindsay 
since he came to the town. He became a memlier of the order in 
Indiana in 1872 and has passed all the chairs of the subordinate 
lodge and been a representative in the Grand Lodge. In real estate 
circles he is widely known through his efficient management of the 
Central California Eealty Company of Lindsay. 



DAVID H. HICKMAN 

Born in Missouri, March 6, 1877, the subject of this sketch is a 
son of Anthony G. and Louisa (Rose) Hickman, natives respectively 
of Kentucky and of Missouri. He lived in his native state, acquiring 
a good common school education, until he was about twenty years 
old, and then, in 1897, came to Tulare county, Cal., where he has 
lived during the past fifteen years, making an enviable record as a 
citizen, as a farmer, and as a man of affairs. The days of his 
youth were spent on a farm and in his new environment he natur- 
ally depended on the laud as a source of livelihood. On coming to 
the state he at once api^rehended the wonderful ojiportunities that it 
presented. In 1901 he bought forty-one and one-half acres, most of 
which he devoted to hay and alfalfa, reserving a few acres for 
pasturage. He bought a number of cows and began feeding them for 
their product. Later he made another purchase of eighty acres, of 
which he devoted thirty-five acres to hay, thirty to alfalfa and fifteen 
to pasture. During the last four years he has operated a cheese 
factory, and he manufactures thirty-six pounds of cheese per day 
from the milk of fifteen cows, keeping about this number of cows year 
to year and selling the increase for veal. His cows produce an 
average of fifty cents a day the year around for each animal, ])aying 
for themselves in aboiit twelve months. Mr. Hickman is the owner 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES fi45 

of two of the tinest maiinnoth jaoks to be found iu the coimty, each 
of which commands from $10 to $15 for service. He gives consider- 
able attention to mules and during the past two years has sold ten 
mule teams at from $350 to $450 per team. Keeping seven good 
brood mares and eleven liead of young horses he raises several 
good mule teams each year. ( )ne of the most notable of the animals 
owned by Mr. Hickman is an Australian shepherd pui> which lias 
but three legs, being minus one leg and shoulder in front. 

In jiolitics a Re]nililicau, Mr. Hickman is also a Prohibitionist. 
He is a member of the Woodmeu of tlie World and he and members 
of his family are communicants of the Bai)tist church. He was mar- 
ried at Orosi to Eunice Dye. wlio l)ore him three children: Marie, 
Kathleen and Rita May. Marie is a student in the iniblic school at 
Orosi, Mrs. Hickman died January 6, 1912. 



WALTER D. MURRAY 

Near Palo, Linn county, Iowa, AValter D. Murray, a son of Alex- 
ander and Jane (Morris) Murray, natives of Ohio and Massachu- 
setts, respectively, was born March 8, 1865. When he was twenty 
years old he went to Beadle county, S. Dak., where he lived five 
years. In three successive years during that time he did all that 
was possible for him to do as a farmer. The first year his crops 
were destroyed by hail; the second they were killed In- drought. 
In the thirri year he garnered a good crop, with the proceeds of 
which, minus what he used to pay his debts with, he came to Cali- 
fornia. Locating in Tulare county, he engaged in the raising of 
goats, in which he continued six years, at one time owning twelve 
hundred Angoras, ranging them in the Sierra Nevadas on eight 
hundred acres he owned. Later he bought thirty acres of land one 
mile east of Sultana. During the last ten years nmch of his land 
has been under alfalfa, which he has been able to cut four times 
each season without irrigation. He runs a dairy of eight cows and 
keeps twenty head of horses and mules and about thirty-five hogs. 
When he started in the goat business he had one hundred and 
twenty-five head, for some of which he paid as high as $7.50 each, 
and the others cost him $3 a head. He sold the mohair at thirty- 
five cents ])er pound, the larger animals >-ielding twelve and the 
others eight pounds each. Politically Mr. Murray is a Repulilican, 
and as a citizen he has demonstrated a fine public spirit. Frater- 
nally he affiliates with the Woodmen of the World, Mrs. Murray 
with the Women of Woodcraft. They were married in South Dakota 
in 188fi, and she has borne him four children, Florence, Lionel, Sam- 



646 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

uei and Reba. Floreuee and Lionel are graduates of the pul)liL' 
school and Samuel and Reba are now acquiring their education. 
Mrs. Murray was. before lier marriage, Miss Nina Perry. She was 
born in Wisconsin. 



ALEXANDER W. WHEELER 

Sons of Illinois, a field of enterprise and of patriotism, have with 
few exceptions done, well in California. In La Salle county, in the 
Prairie State, Alexander W. Wheeler was Ijorn October 7, 1859, a sou 
of William and Elizalieth (Brown) Wheeler. His parents were na- 
tives of England and his fatlier was a graduate of Oriel College at 
Oxford. 

In public schools near his boyhood home, under his father's able 
direction, Alexander W. Wheeler ol)tained a practical education. In 
1880 he came to California and was employed for a time in a fruit 
orchard at San Leandro, Alameda county. Later he was in the ser- 
vice of the F>aker e^' Hamilton Company at Benicia. He came to Tulare 
City with his biother Feliruary 1, 1882, and bought a carriage and 
blacksmith shop which was doing l)usiness in the town, his brother hav- 
ing l)eeu his partner in the enter])rise. Later they sold tlie i)lant 
and Alexander AV. Wheeler went to a point near Tipton, on the plains 
south of Tulare City, and devoted nine years to grain farming. Re- 
turning to the town he was in the employ of the Southern Pacific 
Railioad Company until, in 18!l.">. he liought a furniture business in 
Tulare, which he has conducted with increasing success till the pres- 
ent time. He has recently erected a fine business building, after his 
own designs, on North K street. The structure occupies a ground 
space of fifty by one hundred and twenty-five feet, and his store room 
is eighteen feet from floor to ceiling without any obstructing ]iosts. 
The l)uilding is tlioroughly modern, with attractive plate glass show 
windows. He carries an extensive line of fine furniture, and sells 
not only to people of Tulare but to hundreds of families in all the 
country round about who come to him confidently for good goods at 
fair prices. 

In his fraternal relations Mr. Wheeler affiliates with the Masons 
and the Odd Fellows and has pas.sed nearly all the chairs in Olive 
Branch Lodge No. 269, F. & A. M., and Tulare City Lodge No. ;^()6. 
I. 0. O. F. He has from time to time been In-ought to general notice 
through participation in iiul)lic affairs, notably as a juryman at the 
trial of the Dalton l)rotliers, train wreckers, some twenty years ago. 
In 188.3 he married Miss Mattie P>. Holcombe, a native of Ohio. Her 
father, who cauu^ to Tulare county in the early '70s, was a ]>ioneer 



TULARE AND KINGS (Y)rNTTES W7 

merchaut at Tulare (_'ity and was for a time identified witli the in- 
terests of the Southern Pacific railroad. Mr. and Mrs. Wheeler have 
a dauyhter, Claire J. 



(MIAHLKS F. STAA^TON 

In San Joaquin county, Cal., Cliarles F. Stayton was horn Octoher 
29, 1859, a son of John F. and Martha (Hawkins) Stayton, natives, 
respectively, of Missouri and Tennessee. His father, who had fou^-ht 
in the Mexican war, crossed the plains with ox-teanis in 1S.")2 from 
Independence, Mo., liy way of Westport and old Fort Bridser, thence 
ou hy way of the Suhlett cut-off and the sink of the Humboldt to 
llanstown and Sacramento, the tri]i consuming between five and six 
months' time. Indians were a constant menace, but did the i)arty little 
damage. After liis arrival in California he began to buy stock, which 
he drove to the mining cam])s and sold. In 1869, five years after he 
had come to California, he went to Utah, where he mined till in 1887. 
Next he traveled to the "White Mountains in New Mexico, where he 
was engaged in lumbering and raining. He died Deceml)er .31, 1911, 
at the home of his daughter at Kingsburg while on a visit in Califor- 
nia, aged eighty-seven. 

In 1869, when his father left Tulare county, Charles F. Stayton 
was ten years old. In 1873 he went to herding sheep for Jolui Tuohy, 
a inoneer in San Joacjuin and Tulare counties, who owned at different 
times from five thousand to fifty thousand sheep. His favorite breed 
was the Spanish Merino, and he paid as high as $50 for single animals 
of ])ure blood and often sold rams for $50 each, ewes for $10 each. 
The thoroughbred siieep yielded an average of twelve ])OUiuls of wool to 
the fleece, and the others eight. After packing and herding for 
about eight years Mr. Stayton turned his attention to gi'ain farming, 
and after ten years of that he went into the stock l)usiness. After 
another ten years of success in that field he took u]i vine and fi'uit 
growing in Tulare county, luiying twenty acres, fifteen of wiiich is in 
Muscat gra]ies. He has a small family orchard started, and from 
four-year-old vines made a satisfactory ci-o]) of gra])Os in I!)!!, selling 
eighteen tons of raisins and three tons of other graiies. A ])rivate 
means of irrigation cheapens his ])i-oduction quite materially. 

Politically Mr. Stayton affiliates with the Republican party and 
his active jniblic sjiirit makes him \ery useful to the couununity. He 
married, near Porterville, l'<lla M. Mankins, a native of California, 
whose father was a pioneer here in 1852. Following are the names 
of their nine children: Lawrence, Clarence, C. Forest, Artbui-, ALiry, 
Belle, George (joidon and liuby aiul Kuth (twins). I^awrence lives 
at Klamath Falls. Ore. All the others are residents of Tulare county. 
Arthur was ai-cideutallv killed bv drowning in 1910. 



648 TULABE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

CHARLES J. CABLE 

It was in Mariposa county, Cal., that Charles J. Carle, now of 
Lindsay. Tulare county, was born in 1858. a son of Andrew Jackson 
Carle, a pioneer of 18-49, who died in San Francisco in 1866, and whose 
wife died in 1878. He was a small child when he was taken from 
Mariposa county to San Francisco by his jiarents. In 1868 he was 
taken to Sonoma county and lived at Healdsburg until 1869, then went 
to Illinois, where he remained two years. After that he was employed 
three years on his uncle's farm at Newcastle. Pa. Beturning to Illi- 
nois, he remained there five years, during which period he was for a 
time a student at Butler University. Coming back to California, he 
lived in San Francisco in 1879 and 1880. The ensuing two years he 
passed as a clerk in the employ of different merchants in Inyo county. 
The next two years he spent in the market business in San Francisco, 
whence he moved to Santa Clara county, where he remained twelve or 
fourteen years, including eight years at Milpitas. In 1893 he bought 
twenty acres of land at Lindsay and planted five acres of it. Four 
years later he removed to Lindsay. That was in the fall of 1897. He 
settled on his place near there and has planted it gradually to the 
present time, having at this time one hundred and twenty-five acres 
of orange orchard and about foiir hundi'ed and fifty acres of raw land. 
He was an original stockholder and a manager of the El ^lirador 
Land Company, which was organized about 1904. and has lieen 
handling about five thousand acres of land. He helped also to promote 
the Lindsay Orchard and A'ineyard Tract of fifteen hundred acre.-, in 
which he owns a one-sixth interest. 

The sons of Mr. Carle are named William Ashley and Jackson 
Tyler Carle. Both were born at Lindsay. The former is thirteen 
years old, the latter is ten years old, and they are both in school at 
Lindsay. The father has served as a school director and has in many 
ways demonstratecl a helj^ful public spirit. Fraternally he is a Mason 
of the Boyal Arch degree and is a Knight Templar of Visalia. When 
he came to Lindsay there were no orchards in this part of the county 
except one of forty acres that had been planted by Mr. Cairns. 



FBED M. BABNEY 

In Gouverneur. St. Lawrence county. N. Y.. Mr. Barney was born 
Septendier 10. 1884. a son of B. L. Barney. He came to Kings county, 
Cal.. in 1891, when a boy of seven years, and attended the public and 
high school until he was twenty, graduating from Hanford high school 
in 1905. He then took up a government homestead of one hundred 
and sixtv acres, to which he has long since obtained title, and he farms 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 649 

one hundred and sixty aores of laud owned by his father, located three 
miles east of the city. While devoting himself somewhat to general 
farming, he raises fruits and grapes and specializes on hog raising, 
the breeding of mules and dairying. The farm is outiitted with a 
good residence, ample barns, stables and other outbuildings and up- 
to-date appointments such as are required. Mr. Bai'uey studies his 
business very carefully, gives close attention to every detail and is 
very successful in his business operations. 

Mr. Barney takes an intelligent interest in all that pertains to 
the welfare of the township and county, and is well informed and has 
decided opinions concerning all matters of public policy, state or na- 
tional. He has in many ways demonstrated a helpful public spirit. 
On November 16, 1911, he married Margaret Kautenberg. He is a 
Master Mason, belongs to the Eastern Star and is devoted to Masonic 
]irinciples and mindful of all precepts of the order. 



ALBERT GALLATIN OGILVIE 

Ohio has contributed as generously to the good citizeushi]i of 
California as any other state in the Union, and the quality of its 
contribution does not suffer 1iy comparison with that of any other. 
.:\.lbert Gallatin Ogilvie, a son of Ohio, who has become successful 
in Tulare county, Cal., was ))orn in Delaware county March 25, 1856, 
a son of Johnson and Margaret (Norman) Ogilvie, who were born 
and brought up in Coshocton county, in the Buckeye state. He was 
an attendant of a country grammar school near his home until in 
1874, when he was eighteen years old. 

Early in life Mr. Ogilvie familiarized himself with the details 
of farming and of the development, handling and sale of nursery 
stock, and these interests have commanded his attention during most 
of his active life. Fraternally he affiliates with the Woodmen of the 
World, the Knights of Pythias and the Artisans. In his religious ad- 
herence he is a Methodist, having identified himself with the Methodist 
Episcopal church of Alhambra, Los Angeles county, Cal. Politically 
his alliances are with the Republican party. Taking a deep and abid- 
ing interest in everything that pertains to the welfare and prosperity 
of the people of California and the United States, he has believed 
that they could be promoted better through the activities of that party 
than by means of any other influence. Personally his jmblic spirit 
has lieen many times exerted for the good of the commTinity. In fact 
he is responsive to every legitimate demand upon him in behalf of 
the general prosperity. 

June 21. 1896, Mr. Ogilvie married Mrs. Sarah Frances (Jasper) 
Askin, daughter of James A. and Margaret E. Jasper, their marriage 



650 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

havin.s: been solemnized at Lemon Cove, Cal. He has children named 
as follows: Harry J., who married Cora Blacklmrn; Addie F., Howard 
J., Laura A., Benjamin A., William J., Oscar 0., Fred N., J. Ra>nnond 
and J. Alden. Harry J. and Addie F. were horn of a former mar- 
riage. By her first marriage Mrs. Ogilvie had three ehildren : Elbert 
Leroy Askin; Margaret Myrl, now the wife of Frank L. Atwood. and 
Dora Bernice. 



BYRON GLOYD COMFORT 

One of the successful and scientific farmers in the vicinity of Han- 
ford. Kinsjs county, is Byron G. Comfort, who has been a resident of 
the county since 1887. He was born at Palatine, 111., June 17, 1863, 
and attended public schools near his home until he was seventeen years 
old. Then be found emjiloyment on farms and saved a little money 
with which he came to California and eventually settled near Hanford. 
His farming here was successful and he was soon enabled to buy a 
ranch of one hundred acres on which he has lived since 1902. He gives 
his attention to hog raising, dairying and general farming, making a 
study of his land, the climate, the crops and of everything that can in 
any way influence ])roductiveness, and it is pi'obable that he has 
met with as few failures as any farmer in his vicinity. 

In 1886 Mr. Comfort married Miss Carrie H. Drullard. who was 
born in Stockton, Cal., February 22, 1864. They have four children 
living, here named in the order of their nativity : Elvira G.. Aimer B., 
Ward R. and Wayne M. Of much public spirit and with a real desire 
for the uplift of his community, Mr. Comfort has commended himself 
to his fellow townsmen as one who may be depended on to advance 
to the extent of his ability any movement which in his opinion tends 
to the general good. 



LEVI BLOYD 

The jironiinent contractor and builder of Hanford whose name 
is abo\e was born in Sutter county. Cal., A]iril 22, 1864, and was quite 
young when his parents came to what is now Kings county and located 
four miles west of Hanford, where his father homesteaded a quarter- 
section of land and bought a quarter-section of railroad land. Tliere 
Levi grew u]) and attended the public schools and later farmed until 
1898, since wlien lie has lived at Hanford. He learned the carpenter's 
trade with David Gamble and was with him seven vears as foreman. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 651 

For a time he was employed at cement work aud afterward with the 
San Joaquin Liglit and Power Company. Because the latter emploj*- 
ment kept him much of the time away from home, he gave it up and 
turned his attention to contracting and l)uihling-, aud since that time 
has built many residences, among which are some of the iinest in 
ITanford and vicinity, those of Lyman Farmer, I. R. Horton and E. 
Pickrell being among tliem. AVhih^ his operations have been confined 
principally to Imildings of tliis class, he has done other work, including 
the fixtures and show windows in the Brown & Nieson store, those 
of the ITanford Hardware Co., and improvements on the Stewart pack- 
ing house. In the cement de))artmeut of his work he has his bi'other, 
Winfield S. Bloyd, as a i)artuer. He employs several carpenters and 
several cement workers. As his nierits as a contractor and builder 
become known he is brought constantly into a largei' aud yet larger 
demand, and there are those who jtredict that his o])eratious will in 
time surpass in volume those of auy other builder in the county in 
his i)eculiar fields. 

On March 4, 1886, Mr. Bloyd uuirried Miss Rose Ellis, a native of 
Stanislaus county, Cal., who had come to Kings county, and they hav^e 
a daughter and two sons. Hazel married William Tyler, and they re- 
side in Kings county; they have a daughter, Rosalee. Raymond is 
becoming a machinist at Hanford. Stanlev is a student. Mr. Bloyd 
is a member of the Fraternal Aid and of the Improved Order of Red 
Men. As a citizen he is i>ul)Iic-s])iritedly helpful. 



R. J. ESTES 

In Alabama, January ](>, 1865, was born R. J. Estes, wjio lives on 
the Orosi rural free delivery route No. 1. Box 64, Tulare county. Cal., a 
son of Jack and Jane (Berry) Estes, who when he was about a year 
old took him to Mississijipi, where they were early pioneers, settling 
thirty miles from any other human inhabitant. There young Estes 
grew to manhood, obtained some little education and was initiated 
into the mysteries of backwoods farming and familiarized with all the 
si^orts of a new country, including hunting, of which he liecame very 
fond. His father ])rocured most of the living for the family in the 
woods. It has been estimated that he killed thousands of deer and 
many thousands of turkeys. It is certain that he made quite a deal 
of money from deerskins. He attended many turkey shoots and was 
usually the winner of most oi' all of the prizes offered. He lived out 
his days there and died in 1901. His wife survives him aud is now 
living on their old homestead in Mississippi. 

Cntil he was twenty-six years old. R. J. Estes lived in Mississippi. 
He married there Miss Anna "Watson, who was born in Alabama ami 



652 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

wlio has horiie liim a daiiohter, Troy Estes, who was graduated from 
the Visalia high school in 19U2 aud is married to Van La Port, a 
native of Iowa, and has a son. Wythal La Port, who is a student in 
tlip jiulilic school of Bakersfield. Mr. Estes came to California in 1890 
and began farming in Tulare county. He is working eighty acres of 
the Vacovich land, having sixty acres devoted to grapes, twenty 
acres to oranges. His rancli is outfitted with everything essential to 
its successful cultivation and all the improvements have been installed 
by himself. Fraternally he affiliates with the Woodmen of the World 
and with the Fraternal Aid. He is a member of the Christian church, 
generous in support of all its interests. Politically he is a Democrat, 
thoroughly alive to all economic questions of the day and public- 
spiritedly solicitous for the welfare of the community. 



MIKE V. GARCIA 

A native of the Azores, M. V. Garcia was born June, 1861. He 
is now a highly esteemed citizen of Tulare county, living one mile 
south of Sultana. He grew up and was educated near the place of his 
birth and in 1882, when he was twenty-one years old, came to tlie 
L'Tnited States, landing at Boston. From there he came to Alameda 
county. Cal., wliere he raised sheep two years. Then he made his 
advent in Tulare county and broadened his operations until he had one 
of the notable sheeii-herdiug enterprises in his vicinity, handling 
French and Sjianish Merinos and other fine grades, which he was able 
to dispose of at a large jirofit. At one time he owned five thousand 
shee]i. at another he raised twenty-five hundred lambs in one season. 
In those days the sheep industry was at high tide. The country was 
new and unimproved and antelope, bear and deer were to be seen in 
all directions and all kinds of game were plentifxil in the mountains. 
He remem))ers having made what he calls "a summer trip" into the 
Blue mountains and back to Fresno. His outdoor life brought him 
many strange acquaintances, and he knew Sontag and Evans very well 
and was the only witness of their capture. He relates how Evans 
went over to Mrs. Beekin's and Sontag was killed. These desperadoes 
were often at Coalinga, and menaced every good citizen. Though 
they did not molest Mr. Garcia personally, he has said: "I was glad 
to get out — I did not know what was under ground." He often saw 
the Dalton brothers and he remembers when they went throiigh 
Antelope valley. 

Eventually Mr. Garcia sold his sheep, five thousand head, at from 
$3.75 to $5 a head, and bo^ight one Inmdred and sixty acres of land, 
which he operated from 1901 to 1910, then sold for $24,800 cash. In 
all the business transactions here referred to Mr. Garcia demon- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 653 

strated that he was a man of ability for large affairs. He has identi- 
fied himself with American institutions and is a member of the Re- 
publican party, but inclined to l^e independent. Fraternally he affili- 
ates with the Masons and with the U. P. E. C. As a citizen he is 
public-siiiritedly helpful to all good interests of the community. 

On the day of the San Francisco earthquake, April 18, 1906, Mr. 
Garcia was married by telegraph to Francisca Silva, an old sweetheart 
in the Azores, at an expense of $36. She died Deceml)er 30, 1907. 
His present wife, whom he married December 2, 1911, was before their 
marriage Miss Mariana Tavaz, also a native of the Azores, who had 
come to the United States on the same vessel as her husband and was 
married in Boston. In 1911 Mr. Gai"cia left California and began a 
year of travel through the United States and the old country, meeting 
with many people and investigating social conditions. He finally came 
to the conclusion that California offered inducements unsurpassed and 
returned here and purchased twenty acres of land, part of a tract 
he had formerly owned. Here he has begun improvements and is 
making a comfortable home. 



CHRIST S. HANSEN 

Many natives of Denmark have made good in central ( 'alifornia 
and in Tulare county, though not one has achieved higher repute for 
all that makes for the best American citizenship than Christ S. 
Hansen, who is making a success of vines and fruit trees two miles 
and a half northwest of Orosi. Descended from old Danish families, 
Mr. Hansen was born December 23, 1874, and was reared and educated 
in his native land. He was about thirty years old when, in 1904, he 
came to the United States. California was his objective point and 
he lived a year in Fresno, where he arrived with his wife and two 
children with a cash capital of $50. However, he bought his present 
ranch of forty acres at $125 an acre and has partly paid for it and 
in many ways improved it. He has thirty acres in Muscats, Thompson 
and Emperor grapes, a ])each orchard of one and one-half acres, 
and sold in 1910 twelve tons of Thompson and Muscat raisins and 
about thirty tons of Emperor table grapes. He has five head of stock 
on his place. As a farmer he is proceeding along scientific lines 
and is winning an enviable success. Politically he is a Re]iublican, 
and Mrs. Hansen is a voter in the same party. They are members 
of the Presbyterian church. His public spirit makes him helpful to 
all good interests of the conniiunity. He mari'ied, in 18!)9, in his 
native land, Miss Sene Nelson, and they have children named Carla M. 
and Ester, who are .students in the public school at Orosi. 



654 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

LEWIS BRUCE 

The science of osteopathy has made a phice for itself among 
recognized curative agencies, and the practitioner of osteopathy is en- 
trenclied as firmly in the good ojiinion of the general public as are 
the regular practitioners of medicine and surgery. A leader in its 
field in Kings county, Cal., is Lewis Bruce, whose office is in the Shar- 
l)les building in ITanford. A native of Cass county. Iowa, born De- 
cember 5, 1878, he received his elementary education in public schools 
near the home of his youth. In 1899, ji;st before he became of age, 
he entered the Dr. S. S. Still College of Osteopathy, at Des Moines, 
Iowa, where he was graduated in 1902, and during the vacation wliich 
followed he took s])ecial courses in orificial surgery and g\Ti0ecology. 
He began the ])ractice of his profession at Greenfield. Iowa, in Feb- 
ruary, 190l', and in June, 1903, came to Uauford, where he has devoted 
himself to general practice with nmch success, specializing in chronic 
diseases. 

As a business man tlie subject of this notice is coming to the fi'ont 
in different ways. He is a director of the Lindsay National Bank at 
Lindsay, Tulare county, and owns an interest in a citrus nursery 
near Riverside, Riverside county, on which are thirty thousand trees. 
For a time he was engaged in raising racing horses of good blood and 
capabilities. He owned Beauty N. (trotting record, 2:23). also Sir Val- 
entine, a three-year-old colt which in 1911 took the first premium as a 
two-year-old and holds the championship over all other standard-bred 
stallions of any age. Dr. Bruce was one of the incoT])orators in 1912 
of the Pilue Ribbon Manufacturing Company, with $100,000 capital, to 
be located in Hanford; the principal article for manufacture wid be 
llie Blue Ribbon ])um]). 

By his marriage with Olive L. Peterson, of Iowa, in 1903, Dr. 
Briice has a daiighter, La"\"erae Gloria. As a private citizen he takes 
a deep and abiding interest in all that pertains to the advancement 
of his city, county and state, and he has often manifested a ])ub]ic 
spirit responsive to all reasonable demands upon it. 



ELIAS T. COSPER 

Indiana has given to California many popular and successful men. 
among them the prominent lawyer and man of public affairs whose 
name is above. It was in Noble county, that state, that Elias T. 
Cosper was born, May 12, 1849. He was educated in jiublic schools 
in liis native county and at the LaGrange Collegiate Institute at 
Ontario. LaGrange county. Tnd.. having been graduated from the last- 
named institution about 1870. For a time thereafter he taught school 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 655 

in Indiana, Ohio and Iowa, and so successful was he in this calling 
that he was made superintendent of the school at Lima, Ind. By this 
time his reputation was so well established that his services were 
sought as superintendent of the schools of LaGrange county, in which 
office he served two terms with efficiency and honor. Meanwhile he 
had determined to become a lawyer and was already well read in the 
]irinci))]es of the profession. Finisjiing his law studies under the 
preceptorship of J. D. Feri'all of J^aGrange, he was admitted to the 
bar of Indiana in 1878. After eight years' successful practice there 
he located in Tulare. Cal., in 1886, opening an office, afterwards asso- 
ciating J. F. Boiler witli liim as partner, and tliis relationship con- 
tinued four years. He was elected to represent his district in the 
thirty-third session of the California legislative assembly, in which, 
as well as in the special session in which the Hon. Thomas Bard was 
elected United States senator, he served with distinguished ability and 
credit. Meanwhile he had moved from Tulare to Hanford, where, 
after the expiration of his legislative service, he formed a law part- 
nership with H. P. Brown, which existed two years, since when he has 
I)een in indejjendent i)ractice with offices located in the Emporium 
building. From the time of his settlement at Tulare he was promi- 
nent in Republican politics and eventually was made chairman of the 
county Republican central committee, an office which he filled for sev- 
eral years while acting as a member of important connnittees of that 
body. 

As a lawyer Mr. Cosper has had to do with a large number of 
important cases. His defense of Ike Daly, the murderer, is a matter 
of record as well as of history. He also appeared in the defense of 
Frank Smith and of Ward, tlie burglar, and bore a consjncuous part 
in the water cases of Lovelace versus tlie Empire Insurance Com- 
pany and the C. A. Reagan and Patrick Talent will contests. 

In 1884 Mr. Cosper married Miss Sarah Moore, at LaGrange, 
Ind. Their son, Volney B., of San Francisco, is superintendent of 
the Sartorious Structural Steel and Iron Company's works. Their 
daughter, Laura M.. is the wife of H. L. Bradley of San Antonio, Tex. 
Mr. Cosper berame a Mason at LaGrange, Ind.. and is a member of 
Hanford Lodge No. L'7!», F. & A. M. It was at LaGrange. too, that 
he became an Odd Fellow. Here he affiliates with Hanford Lodge No. 
264 and with Encam])ment No. 68. and with Truth Rel)eka]i Degree 
Lodge No. 326. Court Regcs of the Independent Order of Foresters 
includes him in its membershi]). His interests in the advancement and 
development of Hanford early made him a promoter of the Chamber 
of Commerce idea for the town and he .is a member of the present 
local body, as he was also of earlier organizations of similar aims. 
As a communicant of the Episcopal church he has at heart the various 
interests of the local organization and has for some time been an active 
member of its vestrv. 



656 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

IIENKY AND PHILENA A. MURPHY 

The well-kuown breeder of horses, hogs, sheep and cattle, wliose 
name iutr-odnces this brief notice, was born in Dennison, Clark county. 
III., in I806, and when lie was three years old he was taken to Wood- 
ford county, in the same state, where liis parents established a new 
houu'. There they lived until 185-1, when Henry was eighteen years 
old. Meanwhile he had attended school as opportunity offered and 
had acquired a practical knowledge of farming as then prosecute:] 
in that part of the country. In tlie year last mentioned the family 
went to Iowa. There Mr. Murphy lived until ISfiO, when he went to 
Pike's Peak, Colo. After leaving Colorado in May. 186;], he took a 
pack train to the gold mines in Montana, and after selling his outfit 
took up mining. In February, 1864, he opened up the first paying- 
claim on Alder creek, in Pine Grove district, six miles above Vir- 
ginia city. The claim was a good one, yielding $-10,()00 returns. He 
took his gold to Philadelphia to the mint to be coined, and was there 
when Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. After disposing of his 
gold to a Broadway banker in New York city, Mr. Murphy went to 
Barton county. Mo., where he purcliased considerable land and erected 
two stoneware pottery plants at Lamar, Mo. In 1880 he erected the 
finest cut-stone building in Barton county. Two years later he en- 
gaged in the grocery business in Lamar and subsequently he removed 
to Wolsey, S. Dak., remaining there two years, wlien he came to 
California and settled on the north fork of Tule ri\ er, where he now 
makes his home. This property was inherited by Mi-s. Murphy, it 
formerly belonging to her father. The i)roperty comprises eiglit 
hundred acres, and this Mr. Murphy is operating with nmch i)rofit, 
giving special attention to horses, hogs, sheep and cattle. So exten- 
sive is his business that he has become known as one of the leading 
stockmen in his part of the county. 

In 1879 Mr. Murphy married Phileua A. Bailey, a native of (Jhio. 
"When he came to the county it was mostly wild land and he was one 
of the pioneers in improvement in his vicinity. He has watched the 
development of this now rich region and has clone whatever was ]ios- 
sible to encourage and promote it. To those who best know him it is 
well known that no legitimate appeal to his public spirit is unheeded. 
While he is not active in iiolitical work he entertains very definite 
convictions concerning all questions of public policy, and always 
favors such men and measures as he l)elieves promise to confer the 
greatest good upon the greatest number. Mr. and Mrs. Murphy have 
no children of their own, but have taken into their home and brougjit 
up antl educated ten orphan children. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 657 

CHARLES HENRY HOWARD 

A man wlio is well regarded in Hauford and Kings connty is 
Charles Henry Howard, wlio formerly had to do with ranching and 
with the oil industry, and who will he remembered for his prominence 
in the partition of the county. Maine is the native state of Mr. How- 
ard, his birth occurring February 3, 1850. He attended the common 
schools of the Pine Tree State, which from time immemorial has 
been famoiTS for its public educational system. When he laid away 
his school books it was to take up the implements of the carriage 
builder and in time he became expert in their use, setting up for 
himself as a carriage builder at Brownsfield in Oxford county, western 
Maine, where he jirospered until the spring of 1884-, when he came to 
California. In the fall of the same year he located in Hanford and for 
the succeeding eighteen years he most efficiently filled the jjosition 
of sui)erintendent of A. L. Cressy's ranch, a mile from the city. His 
principal concern there was with resjiect to stockraising, and he soon 
developed into one of the best informed, most careful and most pro- 
ficient stockmen in central California. 

While Mr. Howard was thus employed he l>ought forty acres of 
land three and a half miles southwest of Hanford which he developed 
into a profitable vineyard and which has been for some time operated 
by tenants on sharing terms. He also made some investments in oil 
))roperty which turned out quite well. In 1884 he married Miss Addie 
F. Jlarmon, a native of Maine, who passed away December 21, 1910. 
Gifted with all of the natural progressiveness of the down-east Yan- 
kee and imbued with the spirit of western ])rogress, Mr. Howard has 
been interested in everything pertaining to the development of his 
community and helpful to all local interests. 



CLAUDE D. COATS 

One of tiic prominent farmers and stockmen in the Paddock dis- 
trict, eight miles southwest of Hanford, Kings county, Cal., is Claude 
D. Coats. :Mr. Coats was born at Dayton, Nev., December !». 1860. 
a son of Thomas Coats, who was until the end of his career a leader 
in milling enter])rises in that ])art of the country. The family had 
been at F^ort Churchill four months during Indian troubles and were 
I'eturning to their home in ^'irginia City, stop|)ing at Dayton to look 
after some mining business when theii- son was born. In October, 
1881, after his father's death. Claude located a mile east of his 
present ranch, lie and his brother L. B. Coats rented one hundred 
and sixty acres and were associated in farming and stock-raising for 
fifteen vears. Meanwhile Claude D. Coats bouiiht two hundred and 



658 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

forty acres, which is inchided iu his present home property. He 
moved onto the ranch in 189U and has since made all -the improve- 
ments for which the property is well known throughout the county. 
While his principal business is the raising of horses and hogs, he 
does some farming and has one hundred and twenty acres in alfalfa. 
Some years ago he bought and sold seventy-three and one-half acres 
about a mile distant from liis homestead. 

By his marriage in June, 1902, Mr. Coats united his life aud 
fortunes with those of Miss Mattie Finley, a native of Contra Costa 
county. August 29, 1864, but a resident of Santa Rosa, Sonoma 
county. They have many friends iu the country round about Han- 
ford who rejoice in their success thus far and express the firmest faith 
in their future. Mr. Coats is a man of much natural public spirit 
who is interested in the growth and development of Kings county. 



JOHN V. CREATH 

In his successful career as a contractor and builder, John V. 
Creatli. whose i^lace is at the corner of I and King streets, Tulare, 
in the California county of that name, has demonstrated the value 
of originality and initiative. He is a native-born Californian and 
his life began in Merced county in 1873. He was only a baby when 
his family moved back to the place in the East whence th.ey liad 
come out to the West. In 1888, when he was about fifteen years old, 
he went to Phoenix. Arizona, where he engaged in mining and as 
opportunity offered worked at the carpenter's trade. He came to 
Tulare iu 1906 and has risen to prominence as a contractor and 
buildei'. Among the structures which are monuments to his enter- 
prise aud industry are the Post Office building at Tulare, the Moore 
block and the Dair^Tuen's Co-operative Creamery building. He cou- 
structed the concrete dam across tlie Tule river near Porterville. 1iuilt 
twelve buildings on the Tagus ranch, built several houses in Lindsay, 
Iniilt a set of buildings on the R. F. Gearing ranch and another on 
the McGarver and Walker ranch. In fact, he makes a specialty of 
designing jilans for com]3lete sets of ranch buildiugs which he erects 
so substantially aud artistically that they attract attention and pro- 
claim his talent aud skill as nothing else could do. In addition to 
the achievements mentioned he has erected many buildings of dii¥er- 
ent kinds throughout the country. In 1911 he built twelve houses on 
uniu'])roved property in Tulare City. His business gives constant 
eniployn;ent to from ten to twenty-five men and requires the use of 
two automobiles. Iu the winter of 1912 he built the town of Graham, 
twentv-five miles west of Fresno, for B. F. Graham. 

October 9, 1895, Mr. Creath married Miss June B. Allison, who 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 659 

was liorn in Illinois, and they have children named Ralph, James, 
Florence and Donald. Mr. Creath is identified with local lodges of 
Eagles, Red Men and Woodmen of the World. He is too busy to take 
active part in political work, but has a good knowledge of public 
questions, local and general, and a well defined opinion as to how he 
should vote in order to further the best interests of the people at 
large. 



MRS. CATHERINE LOUISA TRAUT 

In Livingston county, state of New York, June lU, 18;>6, the lady 
mentioned above, a citizen of Hanford, Kings county, Cal., was born 
and in the state of Pennsylvania she grew to womanhood. May 23, 
1860, she married Henry A. Traut, a native of Girard, Erie county. 
Pa., born August 14, 1830. In 1890 they settled at Texarkana, Ark., 
whence in 1898 they came to Kings county, Cal. They lived at 
Grangeville when they came to the county and later bought five acres 
of land in the Emma Lee Colony and remained for about seven years, 
engaged in raising fruit and farming. In 1903 they sold out their 
California interests and returned to their old home in Pennsylvania 
for a visit, but came back to California before the end of that year, 
and in 190-4 bought twenty acres half a mile north of the north limits 
of Hanford, a portion of which was in orchard, the balance pasture 
laud. In 1906 they sold ten acres of this tract, retaining ten acres, 
which is now the home of Mrs. Traut. 

It was at Girard, Pa., already mentioned as his birthplace, 
that Henry A. Traut was raised. When he was twenty-one years 
old he caiue to California, where he mined for eight years. Then, 
retuj'ning to Pennsylvania, he married and engaged in farming and 
mei-chaudising. Eventually he removed to Arkansas, where he con- 
tinued to sell goods until his failing health made it necessary for him 
to come l)ack to California. Here he gave his attention to fruit 
growing until his death, which occurred May 7, 1907. Socially he 
affiliated witli the Masons, and he and his wife were identified with the 
order of the Eastern Star from the time of coming to Kings county. 
They early identified themselves with the Methodist Episcopal church. 
Their one child, Minnie, died aged five years, in 1866. Mrs. Traut was a 
daughter of Samuel L. and Hannah (Crooks) Buckbee. Her father 
died soon after the beginning of the Civil war. Thei-e were many 
bushwhackers in the neighborhood at the time of his funeral and 
his family found it advisal)le to conceal from them the fact of his 
death. Those were strtnuons times in Missouri, when the Buckbee 
fannly was then living, and it was understood l»v Mrs. Traut and her 



660 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

friends that Confederate marauders had decorated their l)ridle reins 
with scalps of Federal sympathizers. Thomas J. Buckbee enlisted at 
Chillicothe, Mo., in 1861. in the Federal cavalry, with which he served 
during the war. His In-other David enlisted in 1861 also and served 
three years in the same Missouri regiment, then, instead of re-enlist- 
ing, came home to care for his aged mother. Thomas was the eldest 
and David was the second brother of Mrs. Traut. 



PARKER RICE BROOKS 

In the old state of Georgia, in tlie heart of the South, P. R. 
Brooks, now of Sultana, Tulare county, Cal., was born September 
24, 1857, a son of Micager and Susan (Sansing) Brooks, both natives 
of Georgia. While he was yet an infant he was taken by his parents 
to Texas, where the family lived a short time. In 18,58, with ox- 
teams, they made a six months' journey across the plains to Califor- 
nia. They met many Indians, but were not seriously molested by 
them. Young Hambrite of the party was drowned in crossing the 
Colorado river. The Brooks family arrived at Porterville in the 
fall of the same year and they have lived in this part of the state 
ever since. The father of the family was a stock-raiser and for 
some time owned many sheep. 

P. R. Brooks was a stockman from 1868 to 1893. Later he bought 
a homestead in Yokolil valley, one hundred and sixty acres of new 
land, and from time to time other tracts in the valley and in the 
hills near by. At the time lie was proving up on his land the 
country was new and wild, witli cattle, sheep and horses ranging in 
all directions. He has watched the progress of civilization and 
the agricultural changes that have developed Tulare county into 
vast fields of grain with vines and trees that are making it famous, 
not only as a farming district, liut as a wonderful land of grapes 
and oranges. For several years |)ast he has lived in Sultana, but 
has given his attention to important interests in the vicinity. ( )n 
two tracts of leased land, one of one hundred and twenty acres, the 
other of three hundred and twenty acres, lying in the valley, he has 
hatched twenty-five liundred turkeys and has at this time fourteen 
hundred and fifty. He has forty acres near Sultana, purchased in 
1901, which he calls his home, thirty acres of it in vineyard and 
orcliard, the remainder in pasture. For the past thirty years he 
has given attention to turkeys, raising many each season. Since Jan- 
uary, 1912, he lias lesided vi])on his home place and is looking after 
that with the care he has always displayed. When he began here 
there was plenty of wild game in the country, including elk, of which 
he saw more than one thousand specimens, and the territory now 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 661 

within tlie limits of the county had not a popuhition of more tlian two 
thousand souls. 

In liis ])oliti<"s, Mr. Brooks, formerly a Democrat, now inclines to 
Socialism, lie married, near llanford, Miss Ellen Burr, a native of 
Shasta county, Cal., who has borne him seven children — Myrtle (the 
wife of Clyde Bursford), Harry, T>illie, Dwi,2,ht, Minnie, Josephine and 
Carmen. Josephine is attending school at Fresno. 



JAMES MAXWELL CANN 

September 1, 1861, James Maxwell Cann was born in Kentucky. 
In 1880, when he was not yet twenty years old, he went to Missouri, 
where he remained until 1886. Tlis parents were John Miller and 
Margaret Franklin (Calhoun) Cann, of English ancestry. He mar- 
ried, near Visalia, Tulare county. Miss Lizzie L. Howell, who was 
born near Bozeman, Mont., and they have two children. Lewis H. 
studied at St. Mary's College, Oakland, and is ])laying professional 
baseball known as "Mike" Cann; Margaret J. is attending the State 
Normal school at P^resno. 

Soon after his arrival in this county, in the si)ring of 1886, Mr. 
Cann found employment in cutting gi'ain with a combined harvester. 
In 1887 he was employed in a flouring mill and for several years 
thereafter was in the grain business, for different companies. There 
was little business then in the country round about except the rais- 
ing of grain. At Sultana he was later employed in a grain warehouse 
until his fruit on his ranch had grown to the paying point, he having 
carefully nursed it in the meantime and done something toward the 
develo):)ment of his land otherwise. His property is located in the 
Alta Irrigation district, the ditch for which was completed about 
twenty years ago. The district itself was established in 1889. Before 
the days of irrigation, land could have been bought for $2.50 an acre. 
With irrigation started, land cost Mr. Cann !^."{7.50 an acre for open 
stubble field without im))rovenient. He planted thirty acres to Malaga 
and Sultana grapes and has five acres of Elberta ])eaches. His 
Malayas have brought him $200 to $300 per acre, his Sultanas have 
yielded a ton and a quarter to the acre. His expei'ience covers all 
of the latter-day develoi)ment of this district, he having seen raw 
land iiereabouts increase in price from $2.50 to $200 and $2r)0 an acre 
in twenty-five years. 

Having cast his fii'st ju'esidential vote for Grover Cleveland in 
1884, Mr. Cann has been a consistent Democi'at to the jiresent time. 
In a fratenuil way he afdliates with the Woodmen of the World. 
Mrs. Cann is identified with the Women of Woodcraft and with the 
Eastern Star, and is a comiinmicant of the Christian rliurdi. 



662 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

L. W. BARDSLEY 

This native of Missouri was brought to California by his parents 
when lie was seven years old, when the family of Lafayette and Mary 
Bardsley, after a short stop in Sonoma county and another in San 
Diego, located in Poway valley. There young Bardsley grew to man- 
hood and obtained an education in the public schools. He labored 
there principally at farming until he was twenty-five years old, when 
he rented a ranch near Santa Ana, Orange county, which he de- 
veloped and operated with profit in connection with several pieces 
of land which he had rented, raising alfalfa and conducting a dairy 
until December, 1904, when he came to the neighborhood of Tulare. 
He bought eighty acres of the E. DeWitt ranch, on which he put all 
improvements including a residence, farm buildings and fences and 
made of it a fine dairy on which he keeps about twenty-five cows and 
raises and handles calves and horses for the market, incidentally keep- 
ing about twenty hogs ; he is well known for his fine Holstein cattle. 
Sixty acres of his land is in alfalfa and he has a two-acre peach orch- 
ard, and the remainder is devoted to his stock. He was one of the 
organizers and is now one of the directors of the Dair^^nen's Co- 
operative Creamery company of Tulare and is a stockholder in the 
Tulare Rochdale association. Besides having achieved success as 
farmer and dair^anan, considerable notice is given to his fine Perch- 
eron horses, which he is breeding more and more extensively each 
year. 

In 1895 Mr. Bardsley married Miss Maude E. Hartzell, a native of 
Iowa, daughter of the late Capt. T. B. Hartzell of San Diego, and who 
had become a resident in the Poway vallej'. They have a daughter, 
Zoe L. Bardsley. Fraternally Mr. Bardsley associates with the Red 
Men, the Woodmen of the "World, the Eagles, and with the Indepen- 
dent Order of Odd Fellows, in which last order he holds memlier- 
ship in lodge and encamjmient and with the Rebekahs. As a citizen 
he is helpfully public-spirited. 



WILLIAM B. WEST 

The late William B. West, of Tulare county, Cal., was born in 
Henry county. Mo., in September, 1837, and died at his home in Por- 
terville, October 1.3, 1903. He was reared in his native state and 
remained there until 1875, devoting himself to farming. His parents 
were natives of Kentucky, representatives of that old Southern stock 
that has done so much honor to American citizenship in successive 
generations. His wife, Ellen M. Gordon, also of Kentucky ancestry, 
was born in November, 1841, in Johnson county, Mo., a daughter of 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 663 

Dr. Presley and Margaret (Wiugfield) Gordon, and their union 
dated from March, 1857. Slie bore liim five children, of whom only one 
is living. Rowena married William Moore and died in Tulare county; 
Thomas G. died at Visalia ; William P. died in Tulare county as the 
result of a railroad accident, and Eunice also passed away in Tulare 
county. Nancy E. married Elias McDarment and is living near the 
Indian agency' in Tulai'e county. 

Mr. West and family settled near Porterville in 1875 and re- 
mained here up to the time of his death. He owned forty acres of 
land on Deer Creek, remained tliere six years, then moved to Porter- 
ville, which remaineil their home until he located on eighty acres in the 
Poplar district. He also invested in business and residence prop- 
erty in town. Mrs. West managed the ranch after her husband's 
deatli until September, 1912, when she sold out and moved to Porter- 
ville. When she and her husband came to California, in 1875, the 
country round aliout Porterville was very thinly settled and im- 
provements in that part of the county were very few. Together 
they watched and assisted in the wonderful development that trans- 
formed Central California from raw territory to a vast garden of 
almost incalculable riches. She has seen the price of land in her 
vicinity advance from $20 an acre to $200 an acre and she owns town 
property at Porterville worth now more than $10,000, for which her 
husband paid $450 in the latter part of the '80s. Mr. West was highly 
respected by the many who came to know him and won an enviable 
reputation as a man of public spirit who was ready at any time 
to do anything within his ability for the uplift and development of 
his community. He was road overseer and helped build the roads 
in liis locality. His widow is maintaining his enlightened and liberal 
]iolicies. 



SCHNEREGER & DOWNING 

The house of Sclmereger & Downing, bottlers and (listri))utors of 
beer at llanford, is one of the leading concerns of its kind in Kings 
county, Cal., the partners in the enter]-)rise being Joseph Schnereger 
and Thomas Downing. Mr. Schnereger came to Hanford in 1885 
and bought the soda liottling works of M. Hegele, which he con- 
ducted with success until 18!)!). It was in 1890 that Mr. Downing 
came to the town. For several months after his arrival he worked 
at his trade as a bricklayer, but in 1891 he liegan to bottle and whole- 
sale beer and his l)usiness was increasingly ])rofital)1e until 1899, and 
at that time Messrs. Sclmereger and Downing combined theii- interests 
and consolidated tlieir two establislimeuts. So wise was tliis depar- 



fifi4 TULARE AXn KlXdS CorX'I'lKS 

tiii't' that they not only abolished mutual conipetition, hut i>ut them- 
selves iu a way materially to ciilariio their combined interests. They 
have the local asi'ency for the Wielands and Rainier l)eers, which 
they bottle and distribute throuiihont llanford and its trade territory. 
They are owners of valuable l)usiness property in llanford and Mr. 
Schnereo-er is a director of the Old Bank. There is uo interest of 
the town, no j)roi)osition for the public uplift that does not have the 
moral and financial support of these two enterprising and progressive 
citizens. 



WILLIAM STAXTOX P.HOWN 

Januaiy !•, IS,")!), William Stanton lirown, who now lives a mile 
west of Hanfoid. Kings county, Cal.. was horn in Henry county, Mo., 
a son of William and Sallie Ann (Davis) l'>i-own. They had a 
daughter, Mattie, who is the wife of David Pcarscm, of llollister, 
Cal. The father died in Callaway county. Mo., in lS(i4. In ISfi,"), W. 
IT. Davis, Mrs. Ilrown's father, came across the plains to California, 
and in 1S()7 ^Irs. Brown came out by way of the 1st hums of Panama, 
bringing her son and daughtei-. They had to take the train fiom 
Mexico, Mo., for Xew York, via St. Jjouis and Chicago, and embarked 
on the Henry Chaucer for Panama, thence to San Francisco on the 
Sacramento, arriving on December 3, 1867. They located in Stanislaus 
county, where Mr. Davis farmed and later he established a ferry 
across the Tuolumne river, which was in oi)eration before the bridge 
was built at Modesto, in 1869. He had made Ins first stop in Cali- 
fornia at Stockton, farming one year, then he took up a half-section 
of laud, in 1867, and farmed in Stanislaus county. 

From 1872 to 1875 W. S. Brown did farm work near Woodville, 
in Tulare county, then lived a year with his grandfather at Modesto, 
attentling school. Returning to Tulare county, he located at (xrange- 
ville and was employed on different farms until 1887. During tlie 
period, 1887-5)0, he rented what is now the Kimble jirune orchard. 
Then he set out and imi)roved a jirune orchard of two hundred and 
forty acres, of which he was forenuui until 189."?. In 1893-94 he 
worked the Avers ranch near Grangeville, and in 1894 moved onto 
twenty-three acres two miles west of llanford. which he had liought 
in 1891. After two years' residence there he rented the P)ardin 
ranch of four hundred acres, which he farmed 1897-1903. About 
that time he bought eighty acres of that projierty. In 1905 he bought 
forty-six acres adjoining his other ranch. In 1909 he built a line 
two-story house on his eighty-acre tract. In 1!)12. with Lee Camp, 
he bought eightv acres of the S. W. Hall ranch, two and one-half 



TULA HE AXl) KINGS COUNTIES GCw 

miles soutli of Haiiford, all in pcaclics, prunes and vineyard, lie has 
fifty aeres in vineyard, forty-live acres in peaches and apricots, has 
improved his property in evei-y way, and gives attention to general 
farming. From time to time he has interested himself in noteworthy 
enterprises and he is now a stockholder in the California State Life 
Insnrance company. Fratei-nally he affiliates with the Woodmen 
of the World. In 18!)] he married Miss Jennie McCamish, a native 
of Henry connty, Iowa, and a danghter of the late R. B. McCamish, 
of Orange county, Cal. 



LEO LEONI 

One of the successful farmers of Hanford and vicinity is Leo 
Leoni, who was horn in Canton Ticino, Switzerland, in 1865. He 
remained in his native land until 1884, when he came to California and 
located in what is now Kings county. For five years after his arrival 
he was emjiloyed as a farm liand, then renting land in vai'ions ]>arts 
of the county at different times, engaged in grain farming foi' him- 
self. After several successful years he made his first purchase of 
land, consisting of twenty acres near Grangeville, which he set out 
to fi'uit and gra])es. As he ])ros))ered he ke])t adding to his holdings 
from time to time, huying, impi-(i\ing and selling, and in 1906, pur- 
chased forty-two and one-hall' acres west of the city limits of Hanford, 
which is now known as the Pfeil tract. At intervals he sold a greater 
part of this acreage, retaining his home place, which he now occupies 
with his family. Mr. Leoni buys and sells I'eal estate, is a stock- 
holder in the Farmers' and Merchants' hank of Hanford, has other in- 
terests of various kinds, and in nuuiy ways shows his i)ul)lic spiiit. 

In inOG Mr. Leoni was united in mai'riage with Lena Oiu'sti, a 
daughter of A. Onesti, and a native of Tulare county. They are the 
parents of two children, Milton and Verna. 



HON. F. DkWITT 

The Inisy, useful and patriotic citizen of Tulai'e county whose 
patriotic interests and unusual executive ability have won him nuu-li 
commendation tlu-oughout the county, is E. DeWilt, who was boi'u 
in Kentucky, February 5, 1844. His family left tiiat state when he 
was a 7nere boy, and coming to California in 1859, his father lo- 
cated with his household at IJed P>luff, whence removal was later 
ma<le to Colusa county. Thei-e young DcWitt lived until 187i.>, when 



666 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

be was aboiit twenty-eight years old, and from that time until iu 
1877 he was in the dairy business in Nevada. Then, coming to 
Tulare county, he located on government land near Deer creek, 
where he lived two years. In 1879 he settled on eighty acres just 
east of Tulare on which he lived until 1893, when he moved into the 
city and made his home until in 1908, farming meanwhile near that 
town. In the year last mentioned be moved to bis present location, 
two miles and a half southwest of Tulare, which consists of three 
hundred and sixtj' acres of land which he had bought in 1903. He 
has since sold all but one hundred and twenty acres of this land and 
now has eighty acres in alfalfa, the balance in grazing land. 

Politics from the point of view of the Democrat has commanded 
Mr. DeWitt's attention since he was a young man. He has served 
many years as a member of the Democratic County Central com- 
mittee and was elected to represent his district in the state legis- 
lature at the session of 1885 and the extra session of 1886. He is a 
member of the board of directors of the Tulare Irrigation district, 
and as such has served ably for eight years, and he superintended the 
building of the Kaweah canal and in a general way has been influential 
in the work of canal and ditch construction. 

In 1870 Mr. DeWitt married Margaret Ford, of Yolo county, 
and they have children as follows: Marcus of Porterville; Mrs. 
Edmoudson of Tulare; Mrs. Frank Ellsworth of Tulare; Mrs. Joseph 
Sherman of Visalia; Mrs. Gertrude Evans of San Francisco, and H. 
C. DeWitt. 



EGBERT P. FINCHER 

It was in Kansas, the Sunflower state, that Robert P. Fincher 
was born June 3, 1857, son of Nelson and Paulina (Moore) Fincher, 
and there he lived until in 1862, when the family removed to Cali- 
fornia. As a forty-niner the father had visited that state before, 
coming overland and returning by way of the Isthmus, and had 
mined three years iu Shasta, Sacramento and Placer counties. Now 
he brought bis family overland, with a train of one hundred and 
eight wagons. Homesteading one hundred and sixty acres of land 
iu Stanislaus county, seven miles northeast of Modesto, he lived 
there twenty-five years. He then sold out and went to Fresno, where 
he passed away April, 1908. He was a native of North Carolina ; his 
wife, who died in 1887, was born in Tennessee. There were born 
to them six daughters and five sons, all of whom are living. Alice is 
the wife of Prof. C. P. Evans of Sau Diego. Mary married G. D. 
Wootten, of Santa Cruz. Jesse M. lives at Madera and Nancy is 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 667 

the wife of John High of that city. James, Letitia, Francis, Elizabeth, 
Vetal and Matilda live at Fresno. 

Robert P. was reared at Modesto, where he remained until 1876, 
when at the age of nineteen lie took u]) the battle of life for him- 
self in Modoc county, where he was employed by Captain Barnes 
for a year as a buyer of cattle and a breaker of horses. After 
that he came home and in 1879 went to Nevada, where he bought 
and sold cattle until in 1881, when he came back to Modesto and 
]5urchase(l a ranch near Oakdale, where he farmed five years. Mean- 
time, in 1882, a dry year, he went to British Columbia and for a 
time worked on a railroad near Westminster. Later he was employed 
for a while in a lumber camp near Seattle. Returning to Modesto in 
1885 he worked his land until 1888, when he sold it and removed 
to Fresno, where he farmed until in 1890. Then he came to Tulare, 
now Kings county, and during the succeeding eighteen months was 
surveying land and locating settlers, until he took up land for 
himself near the lake. This he soon sold to William Hammond 
and went to work for L. Hansen. Then for three years he farmed 
land which belonged to Mr. Sharpies. Next he moved onto the 
Woodgate place, which adjoins the Sharpies ranch, where he lived 
until he bought ten acres of Mr. Hansen near his present home- 
stead. He let this land go back and moved to Fresno and man- 
aged his father's ranch one year. Returning to Kings county he 
farmed Judge Neiswanger's place ten years. In the meantime he 
bought one humlred and sixty acres of the Stone ranch, on which 
he raised cattle three years, developing the land as rapidly as he 
was able. He sold this property and in 1908 bought his present 
i-anch of eighty acres, eight miles southwest of Hanford. He has 
eight acres under vines and the remainder of the land is given 
over to alfalfa and pasturage. He has erected a fine residence, a 
good barn and other farm buildings and gives much attention to 
the Itreeding of cattle and hogs. In 1912 he purchased eighty acres 
five miles from his home place, which he intends putting in alfalfa. 

In 1888 Mr. Fincher married Miss Minnie Hansen, a native of 
Germany, who had lived at Stockton and Modesto. They have had 
four children: Nelson, Mabel, Edna and Forrest. Nelson and 
Mabel died in Fresno. Edna was born in 1889 in Tulare county, 
and Forrest was born in 1891. 

Of the first Sunday school of the Methodist church organized 
northeast of Modesto, Mr. Fincher was a member. It was or- 
ganized in his father's house and his parents were influential in 
bringing it into existence. He was a student in the McTTenry district 
school, the first school organized in Stanislaus county, and has dur- 
ing all his active life been a friend of education and a man of public 



668 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTTES 

spirit. Fraternally he affiliates with the Independent Order of Odd 
P^ellows, tlie encampment and canton, and passed through the chairs 
of these organizations. 



MARTHA J. BUCKBEE 

Since Martha J. Buckbee has made her home with her cousin, Mrs. 
Catherine Louisa Traut, of Hanford, Kings county, Cal., she has 
been known and beloved by many citizens of Hanford and vicinity. 
She was born in Livingston county, N. Y., and was reared there on 
one of the large farms for which the Genesee valley is famous. Her 
parents were P]chnund and Hannah (Clark) Buckbee. She has lived 
at the Traut homestead since October, 1909, when she took up her 
residence in Kings county. In 1905 Mary E. Buckbee, a sister, came 
to California, hoping to benefit her health, and found a home with Mrs. 
Traut, who cared for her with more than sisterly solicitude until her 
death, which occurred August 25, 1910. Before coming west the sisters 
Martha J. and Mary E. sold the old Buckbee homestead in New York. 
The former is a member of the Methodist Ei)iscoi)al ciuirch and during 
her residence here has affiliated with the Hanford congregation. 

The only brother, Charles Buckbee, enlisted at the beginning of 
the Civil war in Comi)auy E, Eighty-fifth Regiment, New York Vol- 
unteer Infantry, which regiment contained many I'ecruits from 1 Liv- 
ingston county. After three years' service he veteranized by reen- 
listment, and was soon taken prisoner and confined in Andersonville 
prison, where he was kept for more than a year, and while being re- 
moved to another ])rison died as the result of starvation. During a 
poi'tion of his service his regimental commander was Col. T. J. 
Thorpe, who is now at the Soldiers' Home at Sawtelle. 



JESSE THOMAS TURNER 

The native sou of California whose name is above is a son of an 
overland ])ioneer of 1849 who is now living in San Joaquin county, and 
was liorn near Stockton, Se]iteml)er 8, 1850. His education was ob- 
tained in the public schools and at a business college at Stockton. He 
assisted his father, James Turner, in the latter 's farming operations, 
until in December, 1884. The elder Turner had bought the Hyde tract 
of fourteen hundred acres in 1881 and anotlier tract of nine hun- 
dred acres in 1884. From the l)eginning of 1SS5 until 1897, Jesse 
Thomas Turner farmed an average of abimt one tliousand acres of 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 669 

his father's land on shares, the remainder of the large holding- being 
devoted to live-stock, including cattle and hogs, and to summer fallow. 
In the fall of 1881) he bought four hundred and seven acres east of the 
Porterville road, and later he bought thirty acres more adjoining 
his first jjurchase. In 1897 lie improved the phice with a residence 
and other necessary buildings and has since made it his home and 
his sole field of agricultural enterprise. He has thirty acres of alfalfa 
and twenty acres of vineyard and usually devotes one hundred and 
ten acres to grain, though in some seasons he has given a good deal 
of attention to black-eyed beans. His vineyard produces fine raisin- 
grapes which he dries, selling an average of twenty tons annually. 
Though not making much of a specialty of stock, he raises cattle, 
horses and a few good hogs. During recent years he has rented one 
hundi'ed and ten acres of his father's land, across tlie road fi'om his 
own i)roperty, on which he has grown grain. 

November 30, 1907, Mr. Turner married Mrs. Ada Ellis, who has a 
son by a former marriage. As a Mason he affiliates with Olive Branch 
lodge, F. & A. M., of Tulare, and is included in a Royal Arch chapter. 



JAMES R. BEQUETTE 

Conspicuous among those ambitious men who are fast coming 
to the front in Tulare county is that native son of the county, James 
R. Bequette of Ijcmon Cove, who was born near Farmersville. in 
1861. His education in the public school, which was well begun, was 
int(M-ni])ted when he was fourteen years old by the death of his father, 
a native of Missouri, who was a California pioneer of 1852. The years 
after that event which otherwise woukl liave lieen devoted to his 
l)ooks lie was obliged to spend in laboring for his living. His first 
independent ventures were in stock-raising, with which he was long 
successful. In 1909 he went into the fruit business and has since set 
out many orange trees, his entire place being now devoted to that fruit. 

In 1891 Mr. Bequette married Miss Carrie McKee, a native of 
Missouri and a daughter of the late John McKee. Mrs. Bequette has 
borne her husband two daughters, Rita and Velma. The former was 
educated at the Lemon Cove public school and at the Exeter high 
school and is now in her seventeenth year. The latter, now in her 
fourteenth year, is attending school at Lemon Cove. Mr. Bequette 's 
mother was a native of the state of New York. Mrs. Bequette 's mother 
lives at Lemon Cove. 

Fraternally Mr. Bequette affiliates witii the organization of 
Artisans at Ijciiion (^ove. While he is iiitei'ested in political (|uestions 
from the point of view of the intelligent voter, lie is not a practical 



670 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

politician and has never aspired to public preferment. He votes at all 
elections and nsiaally deposits a Democratic ticket. In a public-spirited 
way he has always been devoted to the general interests of the com- 
munitv. 



JACOB V. HUFFAKER 

In Morgan county. 111., Jacob V. Huffaker was born February 23, 
1845, the eleventh in a family of thirteen, and passed away at 
Visalia, June 16, 1909, in his sixty-fifth year. His mother died when 
he was young and he was early compelled in a measure to look out 
for himself. He accompanied his father to Texas, where he herded 
cattle until in the spring of 1861, passing most of his time in the 
saddle. As a member of Captain White's company of three hundred 
and sixty-six wagons, he made the overland journey to California by 
way of the Platte and Snake rivers through Western Washington and 
Oregon, and arrived in California seven mouths after leaving his old 
home, having experienced many hardships on the way. The party was 
three days and nights crossing the Snake river, which they accom- 
plished by caulking their wagons, thus transforming them practically 
into skiffs, which not without considerable difficulty they ferried over 
the stream. From time to time they met wandering bands of Indians, 
with whom they had fierce encounters, and Mr. Huffaker, being an 
exjierienced sharp-shooter, was able at one time to save the life of a 
companion named Wells. 

At 'S'isalia, Mr. Huffaker began his career in California as a 
breaker of wild horses and a herder of wild cattle, and in 1871 he 
rented an old stable at $25 a month and embarked in the livery busi- 
ness. In 1882 he bought propei-ty of S. C. Brown on South Church 
street for $1600. From time to time he took an interest in important 
enterprises at Visalia, where' he was regarded as a representative 
citizen of much spirit and where he built up an enviable re])utatiou 
as an honest, energetic, enterprising man of affairs. Fraternally he 
affiliated with Four Creek lodge No. 94, I. 0. 0. F., and with the 
Ancient Order of United Workmen. 

In 1871 Mr. Huffaker married Miss Palestine Dowuiug, a native 
of Missouri, and a daughter of Joseph and Louisa (Bell) Downing. 
Her father settled in Sacramento county and later farmed a year 
near Visalia. He died in Squaw Valley, in 1894, aged seventy-five 
years, his wife passing away in 1909, aged eighty-six years. Follow- 
ing are the names of their children : Mrs. Jacob V. Huffaker and Mrs. 
Clementine Weishar, twins ; Mrs. Sarah Stout, of Fresno ; William ; 
Eli ; and James. Mrs. Huffaker bore her husband these children : 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 671 

William H. ; Frederick E.; Joseph Edward; J. Artlmr; Mrs. Elsie L. 
Dollner, and Harold P. Surrounded by children and friends, highly 
respected by all who know her, she is passing her decHning years in 
her home at No. 530 North Court street, Visalia. 



SAMUEL WHITSON HALL 

The ranching and oil interests of Central California engage the 
attention of many men of ability and enterprise who succeed here not 
alone because of the fine natural opportunities presented by the 
country, but because they would succeed anywhere in any field of 
endeavor to which they might direct their attention. Of this class is 
Samuel Whitson Hall, who lives two miles west of Hanford, in Kings 
county. Mr. Hall was born in Tennessee, April 6, 1865, a son of John 
Ewell and Eliza Jane (Trigg) Hall. John Pjweli Hall was born in 
Tennessee, May 11, 1831, the son of Wilson and Lucy (Ewell) Hall. 
He was i-eared on a farm in Bedford count.v, in that state, was edu- 
cated in local public schools and farmed there until May 12, 1861, 
when he died. In 1854 he married Eliza Jane Trigg, daughter of 
William H. and Mary Ann (AVhitson) Trigg, Tennesseeans by birth. 
Mrs. Hall is now living with her son,' Samuel Whitson Hall, of Kings 
county. She bore her husband twelve children, seven of whom are 
li\ing, all in the vicinity of Hanford. Mary Priscilla is the wife of 
J. J. Cortner; Lucy Virginia married W. T. Holt; Neppie Jane is 
deceased; William Fergus Hall died November 27, 1912; Louis Edgar 
Hall and John Ewell Hall are next in order; George Arthur Hall and 
•James Leroy Hall are deceased; Annie died in Tennessee; Finis Trigg 
Mali and Robert Vance Hall complete the family. 

The immediate subject of this sketch, Samuel Whitson Hall, was 
ivared on ■ the old Hall homestead in Central Tennessee and came 
from there direct to Hanford in 181)7. He l)ought land south of 
Hanford which remained his home until selling out in December, 
l!ni'. It consisted of eighty acres, fifty acres of which were devoted 
to vineyard, twenty-five to fruit trees. After he took possession he 
improved the ])lace in many ways, setting out twenty acres of vines 
an<l eight acres of prunes and peaches. He bought forty acres of 
alfalfa land, half a mile west of the Hanford fair grounds, which he is 
farming to hay. but which he intends soon to set out to orchard. On 
tliis last property, where he is now residing, he has erected a fine 
modern home. 

Xot only farming but oil operations and other interests demand 
.Ml-. Hall's attention and abilities. He has been for some time ideutilied 
with the oil indusfrv in the Midwav field in Kern countv and is a 



672 TULARE AND KIN(}S (M)rXTIKS 

stix'kliolder in tlie N'isalia Midway Company, which has three good 
producing wells on eighty acres of its own land, and also in the Lacey 
Oil ("ompany, which owns two sections of land in the Devil's Den 
country. As a public spirited citizen he is in the forefront of all move- 
ments for the general good. In h)cal and national politics he takes 
an interest at once intelligent and jiatriotic. At his old home in Ten- 
nessee he was made a Mason and advanced to all degrees below those 
conferred in the Royal Arch body. He was raised to the Knights 
Templar degree at Ilanford and is a memlier of Islam Temple, 
A. A. O. N. M. S., of San Francisco. 



ELERY H. CHURCH 

Nine miles south of Hanford, in Kings county, Cal., is the well 
appointed dairy fai'm of Elery H. Church, one of the most progressive 
and successful men in his line in that vicinity. Mr. Church is a Cali- 
fornian by right of birth, having been born in San Joaquin county 
August 7, 1875, a son of Caryl Church. When the son was yet quite 
young the father moved his family to Tulare county, and there 
Elery grew to manhood and gained an education in the public schools, 
meanwhile acquiring a pretty thorough training in farming on liis 
father's ranch and under his father's careful instruction. His first 
venture for himself was on six lumdred and forty acres of his father's 
land, and the following year he farmed eight hundred acres in the 
lake district. Thus far his success had been l)ut indifferent. His next 
move was to his present homestead, which then consisted of one 
hundred acres, half of which he devoted to alfalfa, the remainder to 
general farming. In 1908 he l)ouglit eighty acres of farm land adjoin- 
ing the original home farm on the west, and here his success has 
been all that he could have desired. His principal business is dairy- 
ing, and he owns usualh' about forty cows, milking the year round 
from twenty to twenty-five, and raises each year as many hogs as be 
can conveniently feed. 

In 1905 Miss Gertrude Brock, of Kings county, became Mr. 
Church's wife and she has borne him two children, Susan and Clif- 
ford. Not only does Mr. Church take rank with the leading farmers 
and dairymen in his ]iart of the county, but as a citizen he has shown 
a patriotic devotion to the general good which has conunended him 
to the good ojiiniou of all who know him. Though he is not especially 
active in |)ublic work he fully performs his duty as a citizen, as a 
voter and otherwise, and has well defined opinions ujion all ques- 
tions of public policy and acts consistently with his i)arty upou every 
question of political economy which is brought before tiie people. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 673 

EBER H. La MARSNA 

In the last quarter of a century the develoi^ment of electricity 
and its application to many of the economies of our everyday life 
has involved in its scientific or commercial aspects the connection 
with the electrical business of many young men of excei)tional natural 
abilities and of very exacting special training, and it has been the 
business in which a young man of the right spirit could begin at the 
liottom and speedily reach a high place. One of the young men of 
central California who has demonstrated this in his career is Eber H. 
La Marsna, agent for the Mt. "Whitney Power Company at Tulare, 
Tulare county. 

It was in Kansas that Mr. La Marsna was born December 31, 1875, 
and in January, 1887, he was brought to California by his father, 
Jeffery J. La Marsna, a biograjjliical sketch of whom will be found 
in this work. He was reared in the Woodville district and educated in 
the public schools there, and in 1903 began his active business life in 
the employ of the Mt. A\'hitney Power Company at Porterville, and 
in the service of that corporation he labored a year and afterward at 
^^isalia three years. During the succeeding three years he was in 
the feed and fuel business on his own account in Bakersfield, Cal. 
From Bakersfield he went to Arizona and was engaged in the electrical 
business a short time in Clifton, but returning to California, he 
again entered the ser\ice of the Mt. Whitney Power Comjiany, this 
time as agent of its Tulare division, in which capacity he has served 
efficiently to the present time. 

Fraternally Mv. La Marsna affiliates with the Woodmen of the 
World. He is a citizen of nuich helpful ]»ublic sjiirit and he and Mrs. 
La Marsna are popular socially. They married in 1905 and have a 
son, Dardau, six years old. Mrs. La Marsna was Miss Nellie Barnes, 
of Ilanford, Cal. 



ALBERT E. GRIBI 

The jiionecr jeweler of Hanford, Albert E. Gribi, whose well 
known establishment at No. 113 West Seventh street is familiar to 
most of the citizens of Kings county, was born in Wells county, Ind., 
May 28, 1857. IFe attended jmblic schools near his home and was 
graduated from the high school when he was seventeen years old. The 
succeeding three years he devoted to an acquisition of the knowledge 
of tlie jeweler's trade, and in 1913 he rounded out his fortieth year as 
a practical active jeweler. He came to California in 187(5, and two 
years later he removed to Merced, whence he came to Hanford in 



674 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

1882. Since that time he has done business in the city continuously 
and his store has become one of its landmarks. He is a skillful work- 
man and the peojjle of the town have sucli confidence in him and his 
ability that many valuable watches and pieces of jewelry are left 
with him for repair. He kee]is a varied stock of high quality 
Jewelry and silverware, and peoi)le who want only the best are sure 
to find satisfaction at his shop. His business has increased with the 
V'rowth of the city and ho is reiiarded as (me of Hanford's substan- 
tial and dejiendaljle citizens. 

On March 25, 1888, Mr. Gribi married Miss Mary A. Manning, 
who was born in X^tah, September 9. 1860, and she has borne him 
eight children, who were all educated in the Hanford schools: Gerald 
E., Eugene J., Edward A.. Otto R.. IJcrtha A., Mai'jorie, Alberta and 
Mildred. 

Fraternally Mi', (iril)! alliiiates with the Woodmen of the World. 
He is })opular with the jieople at large and there is no movement 
for the benefit of the community that does not receive his generous 
encouragement and support. 



JOHN W. DAA'IDSON 

It was in Bates county. Mo., that John W. Davidson, who now 
lives at No. 116 West Race street, Visalia, was born August 22, 1865, 
and in Cedar county, that state, he acquired a public school educa- 
tion and practical knowledge of farming as it was then carried on in 
that region. In 1885, when he was about twenty years old, he came 
to Vacaville, Solano county, Cal., and was employed as superintendent 
of the fruit rancli of Frank H. Buck and for a time by R. H. Chinn. 
He came to E.xeter, Tulare county, in 1899, and was for a time sujier- 
intendent of tb.e Evansdale Fruit ("o. Later he was for seven years 
superintendent of the Encina Fruit Co. until in November. 1907, when 
he resigned and moved to Visalia. He is at this time the owner of 
an eighty-acre fruit ranch, six miles east of town, on which he raises 
peaches of several varieties, having forty acres of Phillips cling- 
stones. In 1910 he gathered from his orchard and marketed $fi.OO't 
worth of fruit and in 1911 one hundred and tweuty-two prune trees 
brought him an income of $7-f7. He is now developing twenty acres 
of Crawford peaches, and so thorough and informing have been his 
study and experience in this field of endeavor that he is widely 
recognized as an expert fruit-grower. He set the Phillips clingstone 
trees, and brought them to perfection with his own hands. Besides 
these he has Muirs and Lovells. 

In 1886 Mr. Davidson married Lena L. lOllis, a native of Iowa, 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 675 

and they have two children : Charles G., and Corda May, who married 
George P. French, of Tulare county. Politically Mr. Davidson is a 
Democrat, devoted to the principles and policies as well as the tra- 
ditions and future work of his party. Fraternally he affiliates with 
the Woodmen of the World, with the Loyal Order of Moose, and with 
Four Creek lodge, No. 94, I. O. 0. F., and the encampment. As a 
citizen he has always taken a puhlic-spirited interest in everything 
pertaining to the general welfare and there is no proposition which 
in his good judgment promises to henefit any considerahle numher of 
fellow citizens that does not receive his encouragement and support. 



PETER LEAVENS 

AND 

WILLIAM A. LEAVENS 

On Prince Edward Island, in the extreme east of Canada, Peter 
Leavens was born January 1, 1844. Until 1868 he there made his 
home, receiving his schooling in the public schools and later learning 
the carpenter's trade, and then came to San Francisco via the Isthmus 
of Panama. From San Francisco he made his way to Cordelia, Solano 
county, where for eight years he worked as a carpenter, and tlien 
moved to Lafayette, Contra Costa county, where he leased land and 
became a farmer. On December 31, 1863, he had married on Prince 
Edward Island Miss Martlia Gerow and to them six children were 
born, viz.: William A., Euphemia, Walter, Louis, Frank (of Dinuba), 
and Gracie. Walter, Eu])hemia and Louis are deceased. Gracie is the 
wife of Julius Larson of Oakland. The mother died in Oakland. 

William A. Leavens was born in October, 1864, and was but four 
years of age when his parents came to CaHfornia. Educated in 
Solano county, he learned the trade of carpenter with his father 
and has ever since followed that line of work, also engaging in ranch- 
ing at different periods. He married Helen Bordman, and they have 
had three children, Louis A., Frederick R. and Goldie E. Frederick 
R. mari'ied Alice Fees and they live at Salinas, Cal. Goldie married 
Andi-ew Rader, of Ilanford, and they have a son and a daughter. Mrs. 
Leavens passed away in 1891 and in 1895 Mr. Leavens married 
Georgia A. Cull)erson, of Kings county, and three sons have been 
born to them, William Gordon, Bert F. and Edgar R. 

Fi-om Contra Costa county Petei- Lea\ens bi-ough his fannlv 
to what is now Kings county, where he followed farming and carpen- 
tering. Buying a farm of eighty acres near Yettem he made improve- 
ments and finally sold, obtaining $100 an acre for half, while the 
other forty acres sold for $1:25 an acre. Later he puichased twenty 



676 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

acres at Yettem which he is now improving and preparing for sale. 
Carpentering, however, has been his chief industry, in which he has 
met with signal success. Mr. Leavens is a Republican in national 
issues, but in voting for local officials he supports the man best suited 
for office. As a citizen he has proven himself most public-spirited and 
very helpful to the community. 



HENRY WASHINGTON BYRON 

A career of much unusual activity and usefulness has marked 
Henry Washington Byron as one of the valued citizens of his com- 
munity, he having been a strenuous worker in the pioneer days, 
evincing high traits of character and forceful will. Much credit is 
due him for his work and expense in securing the winery at Lemoore 
and' the organization of the Kings County Raisin and Fruit Associa- 
tion, which has proved a splendid influence for good among the 
fruit growers of the community. Henry W. B\tou makes his home 
a mile north of Lemoore, Tulare county. He is a son of an English- 
man, Peter Byron, who located in Pennsylvania and there married 
Mary Hesketh, a native of that state and of Dutch stock, and took 
her with him to Ohio. Six children were born to Peter Byron and 
wife. James served in the Mexican war as artiller\Tiian and during 
an engagement lost his left arm by a premature discharge; Philander 
served in the Civil war and was a prisoner at Andersonville ; William 
was also in the Civil war, being a prisoner at Libby Prison; Olive 
became the wife of Mr. Greeusides and went to live in Ohio ; Eliza- 
beth married in Peoria county. 111., and lived at Elmwood, 111.; and 
Henry Washington, born in Ohio, February 22, 1840. was so named 
because of the date of his birth. 

When Henry W. Byron was seven years old he accompanied his 
parents to Illinois, where he lived until 1859, coming then to San 
Francisco by way of the Isthmus of Panama, and in 1860 was a 
miner in Placer county. In the year last mentioned, following the 
lure of the gold-seekers, he went to Australia, where he mined until 
1864. Returning to San Francisco he nuide his way to Somersville, 
Contra Costa county, where he worked in a coal mine until August, 
1869. Then, with $25 in his pocket, he started in a spring wagon to 
move to Visalia, but at the ferry at Kingston he heard such glowing 
accounts of the land in the Mussel Slough country he drove to that 
point and took up one hundred and sixty acres where he now lives. 
He soon found employment digging ditches and making barriers of 
willow trees as protection against wild cattle and horses. Two 
vears later he and twenty-five other men organized and constructed 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 677 

the Lower Kings River ditch wliich was a boon to the whole section 
of coimtry. After eight years of grain farming he began setting out 
vineyards, his tirst ventiiie having been on forty acres. The next 
year he started a fourteen acre apricot and nectarine orchard and 
put some land under alfalfa. He now has seventy acres of vineyard 
and fourteen acres of fruit trees, and except for eight and a half 
acres which he gave for a cemetery the remainder of his homestead 
is under alfalfa. During recent years he has interested himself in oil 
and has become a stockholder in the following companies: Th6 Devil's 
Den Consolidated, the Tressciretos Oil Company, the Alamo Oil Com- 
jiany, the Pluto Oil Com])any and the Lemoore Oil Company! '' 

While in Australia Mr. Byron was married to Rosina Gallard, 
daughter of Matthew and Frances Ann (Smith) Gallard, both natives 
of England, near Kent. Mrs. Byron was born in New South Wales, 
Australia, and is one of a family of ten children born to her parents. 
Seven children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Byron, as follows: Lincoln 
H., of Lemoore; Dr. E. H., of Lemoore; Dr. W. P., of Lemoore; Dr. 
Albert, of Oakhind; Olive and Rupert, both deceased; and Frank 
Mark, wlio died in infancy. 

Fraternally Mr. Byron has long affiliated with the Odd Fellows. 
In Australia, in 1862, he identified himself with the Manchester Unity, 
the forerunner of American Odd Fellow lodges. When he returned 
to California he joined the lodge of the Independent Order of Odd 
Fellows at Somersville, Contra Costa county, from which later he 
was transferred to the Lemoore lodge. He was identified also with 
Manhattan Tribe, No. 2, I. O. R. M., of Somersville, the second tribe 
organized in California, and later joined the tribe at Lemoore. He 
was a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen until his 
lodge gave up its charter. In all the affairs of his community he takes 
an active interest. Until 1903 he long was president of the Lower 
Kings River Irrigation Ditch Company, and in all his various con- 
nections with concerns in this community he has evinced the habits of 
honorable dealing, straightforward and conscientious in every detail, 
and htyal and active in his citizenship. 



EAN EOSS 

Born in Kings county, Cal., February 26, 1884, the well-known 
young fanner whose name is above is a native son of the Golden State. 
He attended public schools until he was eighteen years old, then 
joined liis father on the ranch and was his chief assistant as long- 
as his parent lived. David Ross, his father, came to Kings county, 
Cal., in 187], and in 1873 settled near Lemoore, where for a time 



678 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

he taught public school, aud he also taught iu Tulare, Kern, Fresno, 
Mariposa, Merced, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, and for 
two years filled the office of school trustee. 

In 1873 there came to California a young woman who was to 
become the wife of David Ross. She was Maggie Bell Ross, a girl 
of strong common sense, who took a hopeful view of life and was to 
him a heljjmeet to the end of his days. Quite early in life he engaged 
in stock-raising, farming and dairying, in which occupations he met 
with considerable success and in 1874 he took up public land, to 
which he later acquired title and which he developed into the fine 
ranch which came to be known as the Ross place. On that property 
he labored with good financial results as long as he lived. He passed 
away February 11, 1911. His widow, Maggie Bell Ross, survives 
and is living with her son on the homestead. The latter manages 
the eighty-acre place, giving attention to general farming, dairying 
aud stock-raising. He learned farming under his father's enlight- 
ened and practical instruction and has achieved successes iu his 
specialties of which many an older agriculturist might be justly proud. 



WILLIAM BUDD 

One of the most successful horticulturists and general ranchmen 
of Ti])ton, Tulare county, is William Budd, who was born June 29, 
1842, in Camden coimty, N. J., over the river from Philadelphia. He 
grew up and was educated in his native county and at seventeen 
located iu Philadelphia, whence after a few years he moved to Kansas 
City, Mo., where he was for ten years well known in the shoe trade. 
In 1890 he came to California and made his home at Tulare. Tulare 
county, and four years later he bought eighty acres about live 
miles north of that town which he converted into a fine vineyard 
and eventually sold in order to move to a point five miles south \vest 
of Tipton. Here he bought four hundred and eighty acres, and he has 
since given his attention to stock-raising, growing cattle, horses and 
hogs of breeds and quality which have always made them in demand 
in the market. When he came on the i)lace it included thirty-five 
acres of orchard, but that is now out of bearing; in 1910 he set out 
ten acres of new orchard. He also has twenty acres in vineyards, 
given over entirely to raisins, and is preparing one hundred and 
sixty acres for alfalfa. In every respect his homestead is first class 
of its kind, its buildings being modern and ample and its appliances 
up-to-date. On the place is an artesian well which flows two hun- 
dred aud fifty gallons a minute and two pumping wells, one of them 
supplied with a ten horse-power electric motor, the other, which is 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 679 

exclusively for domestic use, having' a two horse-|)ower motor. Mr. 
Budd's residence is modern and substantial, one of its conveniences 
being an electric light plant. He gives considerable attention to dairy- 
ing, at present juilking fifty cows and planning to milk in the near 
future twice as many. He sells about twenty tons of raisins in a 
season from twenty acres of land. His live stock includes twelve 
hoi-ses, about one hundred and fifty head of cattle and many hogs, 
and he has also made quite an investment in jioultry. 

In 1890 Mr. Budd married Miss Katie Spankle, a native of Oiiio. 
In comparatively recent years a member of their household has been 
William Blauw, their grandson and a son of Antonio Blauw, whom 
they have reared since he was eight months old. Mr. Budd 
is active, energetic and animated by public spirit. He has from time to 
time had to do with Inisiness interests not directly connected with his 
ranching. The dairy interest also has been fostered to an extent 
through his identification with it. He is at this time a stockholder in 
the Ti]iton Co-operative Creamery. 



GEORGE BARTLETT 

Two miles north of Orosi, Tulare county, Cal., lives George 
Bartlett, son of Isaac Bartlett, grandson of Abraham Bartlett, great- 
grandson of Coi'uelius Bartlett, and great-great-grandson of Dr. 
Josiah Bartlett, one of the signers of the Declaration of Inde])end- 
ence. Mr. Bartlett 's father married Hannah Williams, who like him- 
self was a native of Lebanon Springs, N. Y. She had five brothers 
in the army of General Grant in the Civil war, not one of whom was 
wounded, and they are all still surviving. She had five sisters, of 
whom one survives. The grandmother on the maternal side reached 
the age of eighty-eight and the grandfather passed his ninetieth year. 

(Jeorge Bartlett was born in Albany, N. Y., September 16, 1858. 
In his youth he learned the millwright's trade and at different times 
has converted many old-style grist mills to new-style roller process 
mills. For six years he traveled in the interest of the E. P. A His 
Company, of Milwaukee, Wis., visiting twenty-two states, and then 
settled at Hay Springs, Neb., for a time. Later he spent one year in 
Salt Lake City and in November, 1890, settled in California, mining 
for a year in Tuolumne county, where he now owns ))ro)ierty. He 
owned a half interest in the eighty acre Anthony prune orchard in 
Kings county, where he was a resident of Grangeville and vicinity for 
sixteen yciars. In 1908 he l)0ught thirty-eight acres, uiiu'teen ac.'cs 
of which are in Muir and Lovell peaches, paying $7,.")00 for the 
propcrt.v. and lias sold over $12,0(11) worth of iicaches since he bought 



680 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

the place. TTithout irri.eation be is able to barvest five crops of alfalfa 
eacb year. He keeps just stock enough to properly operate the ranch 
and has made a specialty of chickens, having raised one thousand in 
1911, when he sold $180 worth of esr.S'S from one hundred and eighty 
bens. His home is one of the most comfortable in its vicinity. He 
bought property in Berkeley which he traded for orange land near 
Bacon Buttes and owns an undeveloped mine in Tuolumne county. 

In Sheridan county, Neb., Mr. Bartlett married Miss Julia M. 
Knowlton, a native of Salem, Oregon, and they have two daughters, 
Gladys and Ethel. Gladys was graduated from the University of 
California in 1910 and is teaching school, and Ethel is a student at the 
University of Berkeley, Cal. Independent in thought and action, Mr. 
Bartlett affiliates with no political party. He was a member of the 
high school board for three years and in that capacity has had to do 
with the advancement of the school at Hanford. He was reared in 
the Presbyterian faith. Mrs. Bartlett is a Baptist. 



EDWARD G. SELLERS 

Among the active citizens of Lemoore is numbered Edward G. 
Sellers, the progressive and flourishing farmer and contractor, who is 
honored not only as a worthy citizen of that place, but as having been 
the first rancher in this section to install a cream separator in 
connection with his dairy. This, however, is but one example of the 
aggressive initiative s]iirit wliicli lias marked Mr. Sellers' entire 
business career. 

It was at Fruit\ale, now a part of the site of Oakland, Cal., that 
Edward G. Sellers was born July 21, 1864, a son of Samuel Sellers. 
He was reared in Contra Costa county, where his father farmed, and 
received his education in the public schools near Antioeh, and it was 
in that vicinity that he had his early exjierience in farming and fruit 
raising. In 1885, when he was twenty-one years old, he settled on a 
ranch near Lemoore and since then at various times he has bought 
several pieces of i)ro])erty. The first was his present alfalfa ranch 
of one Inmdred and sixty acres seven miles southeast of Lemoore. 
Another one hundred and sixty acres, located five miles south of 
Lemoore, he sold in 1905 after having put some improvements on it. 
Later he bought eighty acres four miles south of Hanford. which he 
imjjroved with thirty acres of vineyard, putting the remainder under 
alfalfa, and this he sold in 1904. A year later he bought two hun- 
dred and twenty acres near Stratford, all in alfalfa, which is one 
of his present holdings. In 1902 he had invested in twenty-five 
acres, three miles north of Lemoore, of wliidi eiiiht acres is in 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 681 

vineyard, seventeen acres in alfalfa, which improved ]jlace is a valued 
part of his property. 

For many years Mr. Sellers has been a contractor in teaming, 
freio-hting, ditching and moving dirt. He did most of the ditching 
and much of the work on the levees on the Empire Investment Com- 
pany's ranch of nineteen thousand acres near Lemoore, a large 
amount of levee work on the Riverdale reclamation project, and much 
heavy teaming in the hauling of pipe and machinery for a pipe line 
of the Standard Oil Company. In 1910 G. B. Chinn became his part- 
ner in this enteri)rise. They employ an average of twenty men the 
year round and their business requires the work of fifty horses. Mr. 
Sellers is a stockholder in the Chinn Warehouse Company of Lemoore 
and is a stockholder in and a director of the First National Bank of 
Lemoore. 

Mr. Sellers married July 24, 1887, Miss Ella Graves, a daughter of 
Nathan L. Graves, born in Calaveras county, Cal., but at the time 
of her marriage she was living in Kings county. 



JOHN E. WALKER 

The famous bee culturist of central California, John E. Walker, 
was born near Woodville, on the Tule river, June 27, 1876. As a 
.vouth lie had opportunity to learn a good deal about practical farm- 
ing and acquired a good business education in the public schools. 
For some time after he started out for himself he worked for wages, 
early in his career becoming interested in honey bees. Since liis 
boyhood he has kept bees and studied them and become more and 
more expert as a producer of honey; for the past decade this busi- 
ness has commanded his principal attention and he was the first in 
this vicinity to sell any considerable amount of honey, he having 
made his first delivery at Armona where a carload was being made up, 
the i)rice [laid him having been three cents a pound. The first load of 
honey, twenty years ago, was drawn by a four-horse team. The deliv- 
ery at Visalia and Tulare in 1911 aggregated $20,000. Mr. Walker 
has six hundred colonies of bees and his average output is about 
twenty-five tons a season. For some years past he has been selling 
agent for the Tulare County Bee-keepers Association of which for 
three years past he has also been ]iresident. 

It was in 1903 that Mr. Walker bought his i)resent homestead 
of twenty-one acres, most of which is under alfalfa, but carries only 
enough stock for his own business. He has become widely known 
among the a]iiarists of the entire country and is recognized as an 
authority on bee culture and the production and marketing of honey. 



682 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

111 his relations with his fellow citizens he is liberal-minded and help- 
ful, and in his religion he affiliates with the reorganized Church of 
Jesus Christ Latter Day Saints. On October 11, 1899, he married 
Miss Arna Headrick, and tliey have four children, Oliver, Vernon. 
Neva and Elvin. 



EICHARD E. HYDE 

The wise application of sound business principles and safe 
financial conservatism accounted for the noteworthy success of the 
late popular citizen of Visalia whose familiar name is the title of 
this article. Mr. Hyde was born at what is now Port Ewen, Leister 
county, N. Y., and died at Visalia in 1911. He was a son of David 
and Sarah (Houghtaling) Hyde, natives also of the Empire State. 
He was fortunate, in his youth, in being poor and in living among 
people who respected lalior, frugality and honesty and cultivated a 
feeling of good-will toward their fellow men. It was with such ideals 
that he fared forth in the chances of life. He was but a big boy 
when he began to earn his living as a clerk in a general merchandise 
store, and it was in the same capacity that he began his career in 
California, years afterward, in one of the then busy mining districts. 
Later, at Santa Cruz, he opened a store of his own, and still later he 
established the Bank of Visalia, the pioneer monetary institution of 
Tulare county and one of the oldest in the San Joaquin valley. It is 
a matter of record that this last important business beginning was 
made in August, 1871, and that he was at the head of the institution, 
latterly with the honored title of president, during the remainder of 
his life. 

The large interests of Mr. Hyde reached out along many avenues 
of activity. Many buildings were erected at Visalia by him, and he 
naturally acquired landed interests. From time to time he was, in one 
way or another, associated with important commercial enterprises. 
Though his connection with some of them was only indirect and not 
avowed, his eminent ability for atfairs was very potent in advancing 
them, and his faculty of success made him master of strong pro])Osi- 
tions. 

The family of David and Sarah (Houghtaling) Hyde consisted of 
Richard E. and his six lirothers, the others being Abram, Jeremiah D., 
Alfred, Christopher, John and William. Richard E. was quite young 
when his father passed on, leaving the training of his sons to a 
watchful and prayerful mother, whose affectionate devotion was 
rewarded by the compensating knowledge that her sons had all 
developed into honest and trustworthy men, each a credit to his com- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 683 

munity, helpful iu its advancement and in sympathy with its people 
and their aspirations. Two of them, Christopher and Jolin, were 
pioneers in Wisconsin and were leaders in the agricultural and eco- 
nomic affairs of their respective localities. Christopher reared two 
daughters and a son, the latter being a well-known business man of 
Oakland. John became father of a large family. 

Like many others who have been instrumental in shaping the 
destinies of the far west, Mr. Hyde brought to the task eastern 
energy, industry and confidence. He became known as one of the 
wealtliiest, as well as one of the coolest and most reserved and digni- 
fied men in Tulare county, recognized along the San Joaquin valley as 
the personification of social and business integTity. 



GEORGE H. STEVES 

The father of George H. Steves was Jeremiah Steves, his grand- 
father was Joshua Steves, his great-grandfather was Jeremiah Steves 
the first. The only other Steves to found a family iu America was 
Franklin Steves, a nei)hew of the first Jeremiah. George H. was l)orn 
iu Chautauqua county, N. Y., January 24, 1840. On June 9, 1861, 
soon after he became of age, he enlisted in Company H, Ninetieth 
Regiment, New York Volunteer Infantry. Louisiana was the scene of 
his first battle experience and the last regular engagement in which 
he participated was at Cedar Creek, during the interim of which he 
saw active service in twenty-five or thirty hot skirmishes. At Cedar 
Creek a shot entered his breast and lodged behind his shoulder-blade 
inflicting a serious wound which, while it did not send him to the 
hospital, has troubled him ever since, and in recognition of which 
he has had conferred upon him a pension of $o6. He has a vivid 
recollection of service under General Banks in a small Louisiana 
town where he helped confiscate the silver s])oons of certain Con- 
federate sympathizers. The immediate effect upon him of liis wound 
was to reduce his weight from one hundred and eighty-six pounds to 
eighty-six pounds, and he was honorably discharged from the service 
at Camp Russell, December 9, 1864, returning to liis native county in 
New York. There he remained until 1902, when he came to Tulare 
county. He owned some property at Jamestown, N. Y., wliich he 
sold when he came West. He is a nieniber of the Grand Army of the 
Republic and politically he affiliates with the Republican party. In his 
religious identification he is a Methodist. Mr. Steves has during recent 
yeai's been a great traveler, lie married in New York state Miss 
Lucinda R. Wilson, a native of tliat state, who passed away nine years 
ago. The names of his children are Ida B., J. G., Melvin F. and Matie 



684 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

L. Ida B. married Frank Wilcox and their daughter is named Rose 
Belle. J. G.. guard at the Auburn, N. Y., penitentiary, married Ethel 
Sampson and has children Catherine, Ethel, William and Annie. 
Melvin F. married Louisa Karsthorse and they have children, Lewis, 
Louise. Mary, Henry and Elizabeth; their home is in Rochester, N. Y. 
One of Mr. Steves 's most precious possessions is a Grand Army badge. 
Department of Utah, 1909. 



WILLIAM G. WALKER 

A native of Arkansas, William G. Walker was taken when a small 
boy to Texas, where his father's family established a home. There he 
grew up and was educated so far as local facilities permitted, and 
there he enlisted for service in the Mexican war, in which he bore the 
part of a true and dependable soldier. After immigration to Cali- 
fornia had set in, he came across the plains from Texas by the Mexi- 
can route and stopped for a short time at San Jose, and from there 
for a short time he devoted himself to stock-raising, and thence went 
went to San Juan and later mined in Tuolumne county. In 1859 he 
took up his residence in Tulare county, and there for a short time he 
devoted himself to stock-raising, and thence went eventually to [Mono 
county, where he passed away in 1863. 

In 1846 Mr. Walker married in Texas Miss Martha M. Tolbert, 
whose parents had brought her in her childhood to Montgomery county, 
that state, where she was reared to womanhood. J. T. Walker, of 
No. 427 South Court street, Visalia, was the youngest of their chil- 
dren; Anna is Mrs. J. A. Keer of Los Angeles; Mary is Mrs. McEwen 
of ^'isalia ; and Mrs. Amanda Wren is their youngest daughter. Mr. 
Walker was a member of Visalia lodge Xo. 94, F. & A. M., and as a 
citizen he was public-spirited and helpful to the community. Mrs. 
Walker, who is one of the few living connecting links between the old 
ordei- of things and the new, has a vivid recollection of her over- 
land journey to California. The Indians were at the time very hostile 
and her party had an encounter with a band of them. There were 
sixty ]ieople in the train and the mode of locomotion was by means of 
horses and mules. In the period before that of California immigration 
she had thrilling experiences in Texas in connection with the Mexican 
war, while her husband was absent from home in furtherance of his 
duties as a soldier. 

It was in Tulare county tliat J. T. Walker, youngest child of 
William G. and Martha M. (Tolliert) Walker, was born in 1862. He 
attended the public schools near the home of his childhood and boy- 
hood and learned the trade of harness-maker and saddler, at which 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 685 

he was employed during bis earlier years. Eventually he became in- 
tei-ested in oil properties in Kern and Kings counties, Cal., and at this 
time he is quite successfully handling patent lands in the oil belt. 
A man of enterj^rise and of public spirit, he is not without his due 
share of local influence, and there is no movement for the good of 
the community which does not have his hearty encouragement and 
co-operation. A native son not only of California but of Tulare 
county as well, he is also a son of a pioneer and has himself witnessed 
much of the development of central Califoi'uia which has made it one 
of the wonderlands of the United States. 



JONATHAN ESREY 

In the Prairie State, Jonathan Esrey was born December 2, 1831, 
and when he was about ten years old he went with his father's family 
to Missouri, where he completed such education as was available to 
him and lived until 1852, gaining meanwhile a i^ractical knowledge 
of farming. He was a member of a party which crossed the plains to 
California with ox-teams in the year last mentioned and after mining 
for a while at Placerville and at Sacramento, he came in the early 
'60s to Tulare county and went into the stock business. Later he 
took u]i farming and in time develo]ied an important dairy interest 
He ]3re-empted land along the line of the railroad, a mile and a half 
northwest of the present site of Lemoore, for which he was later com- 
])e]led to pay the railroad comjiany a good price. Eventually he sold 
this property and in 1878 he bought four hundred acres three miles 
from Lemoore and by later purchases he increased his holdings in 
this vicinity to nine hundred acres. He sold off tract after tract until 
he had only one hundred and sixty acres, a fine ranch two miles and a 
half northwest of Lemoore, twenty acres in vineyard, most of the 
remainder in alfalfa. Here he established an important dairy busi- 
ness, which his widow has conducted since his death. 

In 1871 Mr. Esrey married Miss Sarah A. Winsett, a native of 
Missouri and a daughter of Robert and Nancy (Schooler) Winsett, 
natives of Tennessee. She came to California in 1870 and her ]iar- 
ents came seven years later and lived in central California until they 
passed away. She made her home in the vicinity of Lemoore until 
lier marriage. Four children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Esrey : 
George lives on the family homestead ; Kate married L. L. Follett and 
died November 20, 1908; Robert is conducting a ranch four miles 
from Lemoore; and Justin died April 7, 1912. Mr. Esrey was a nuin 
of well-defined pulilic spirit who did much in his time to advance the 
interests of his communitv, and he was well kTiown as a friend of 



686 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

education. While not particularly active as a politician, he was influ- 
ential in local affairs. He was an active member of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church South, and for several years was a trustee and 
deacon of the church at Lemoore. 



LEVI LUKENS GILL. 

Born in Pickaway county, Ohio, June 23, 1837, Levi Lukens Gill 
was raised on a farm and educated in common schools there. He 
was married February 4, 3858, to Eliza A. Harriman, born in Pick- 
away county, May 18, 1842, daughter of Aaron A. and Eliza (Mitten) 
Harriman, the former born in Vermont and the latter in Ohio. At 
the time of the Civil war they moved to Einggold county, Iowa, and 
there he farmed until 1873, when he embarked with his family on 
an emigrant train for California. Settling in Yokohl valley, he 
bought, homesteaded and pre-emjited land and engaged in the stock 
business on a large scale, taking his sons into partnership. Here 
he was active until his death, September 4, 1909. 

Levi L. Gill and his wife had sixteen children, ten of whom are 
living, viz. : Charles O., born in Ohio ; Will and Fred, twins, born in 
Iowa; Louis, also born in Iowa; Julia, wife of Marion Anderson; 
Pruda M., widow of John C. Hodges; Frank and Lee, on the ranch; 
Martha, who married Harry Sickles; and Ora, at home. In polities 
a Republican, he assisted in organizing schools there. He bought the 
White ranch upon which the first orange trees were planted in 
Tulare county, in Frazier valley. He retired a shoi't time previous to 
his death. Mr. Gill built a home in Porterville, at Oak and Gravilla 
streets, where liis widow now resides. 



JOHN AND SEREPTA WALKER. 

One of the early settlers of Tulare county who remains to tell of 
the days of the pioneers when there was no Tulare city, when the 
country was just open plains, when stock-raising was the only business, 
and when the railroad bad not been thought of, is Mrs. Sere])ta 
Walker, who lives two miles northwest of Tulare. She was born in 
Iowa in 1849, a daughter of Adam Pate, and in 1852, when she was 
three years old, was brought by her father across the |)lains to Cali- 
fornia. For a time after he came he ventured in the mines, but later 
turned to farming north of Stockton and still later moved to a place 
near that town. The daughter came to Tulare county in 1869 and for 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 687 

five years lived near Porterville and then pre-emi)ted a homestead on the 
Tule river near Woodville. After he had perfected his title to this 
l)roperty she moved to her present location, two miles northwest of 
Tulare, where she and her Imshand bought thirty-two acres which 
she owns at this time. She was married in Stockton in 1867, to John 
Walker, a native of Illinois, who came to California among the pio- 
neers and died in 1888 on the ranch which is now his widow's home! 
Mrs. Walker, who was left with a large family of children, has 
farmed the homestead successfully to the present time. She is now 
conducting a dairy on a small scale and has sixteen acres of alfalfa 
and ninety colonies of bees. 

Of Mrs. Walker's eleven children, nine are living. Clara is the 
wife of Jesse Fugate of Fresno. Loren lives with his mother and 
works a ranch adjoining hers. Edwin is an apiarist near Tulare. 
John E. is represented by a separate biographical sketch in this 
volume. Frank is a member of his mother's household. William lives 
at Tulare. Lydia married Preston Hodges of Tulare. Lucy lives in 
San Francisco and Edna is still of her mother's home circle. 



A. N. ASHLEY 

A man destined to strange experiences, much arduous tra\-el and 
somewhat notable vicissitudes of fortime was A. N. Ashley, who 
first saw the light of day in Placer county, Cal., in 1864. There he 
was reared and attended school more or less until he was seventeen 
years old, when he went to work in the mines near his home. From 
there he went to Santa Clara county, in 1883, and was during most 
of the time until 1889 engaged in the mercantile business. Then 
selling out he went up into Washington and Oregon, where he mined 
about ten years, uutil- after the gold strike there took him to Nome, 
Alaska. He was in Nome from 1!MH) till in 1905, when he came back 
to California to visit iiis parents, and took up eighty acres of fine land 
in Tulare county, witli the determination to go back to Nome and 
dig out the money witii which to pay for it. There he worked in 
1907 and 1908. In 1910 he returned to California to take his jilace 
in hand and soon afterwards purchased twenty acres more with a 
view to devoting it to the growth of olives. 

Jolm T. Ashley, fatlier of A. N., came aci-oss the jilains to 
California l»y way of Salt Lake and was in his day a jiioneer in the 
place of his location. Whethei- his forefathers had been navigators 
or explorers is not known, but it is certain that he liad inherited blood 
of men who were exi)lorers and carried civilization among strange 
peo]il('s, and it is equally certain that he passed some of it down to 



688 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

liis son who, when he penetrated far into the northern oohl rejjions 
and remained there year after year doggedly working to carry out 
a fixed ijurpose, had experiences which could they be given in full 
would in themselves constitute a most interesting volume. A. X. 
Ashley affiliates with the Arctic Brotherhood and with the Native 
Sons of the Golden West. 

In 1905 Mr. Ashley married Miss Lizzie P^'irzlaff, who has proven 
a helpful companion to him and enjoys with him the pleasure of 
having one of the most beautiful homes in the valley. He is a man 
of public spirit, who has in many different ways evidenced his interest 
in the communitv. 



E. J. GIBSON 

A Pennsylvauian by birth, born in Lawrence county April 19, 
1849, E. J. Gibson was reared and educated there and lived there until 
he was twenty-two years old. He then went to Kansas, but soon 
returned to Pennsylvania and two years later went to Missouri, where 
he farmed on rented land three years. Going back to Pennsylvania, he 
was married in 1879 to Miss Nanny Alcorn, a native of that state, and 
returned with his bride to Missouri. In 1885, his wife requiring a 
change of climate, they came to California and Mr. Gibson bought 
sixty acres of land six miles southwest of Hauford. Two years later 
he sold off twenty acres of this tract and planted the remainder to 
orchard. Afterwards he sold twenty acres more and liought twenty- 
seven acres adjoining his original purchase. Next he traded the 
remaining twenty acres of his original sixty-acre j^lace for laud 
adjoining his twenty-seven-acre purchase and bought thirty-three acres 
adjoining this, then owning in all eighty acres in a compact body. 
In 1902 he bought twenty acres north of the city which he sold in 
1904 to L. D. Porter; after this transaction he returned to Pennsyl- 
vania, visiting among old friends and relatives of his family and 
Mrs. Gibson's. In the fall of 1907 he bought his present home place, 
twenty acres, three miles west of the city. He has sold twenty-seven 
acres of his old eighty-acre purchase and the remaining fifty-three 
acres of the tract is farmed now by his son, Fred Gibson, who 
has thirty-five acres of it in orchard. 

For his present homestead Mr. Gibson paid $400 an acre and 
twelve acres of the twenty is devoted to peaches, seven to vineyard. 
He has ]nit on the place all the improvements visible there now, 
including his fine residence which was erected in 1908. Taking an 
interest in Hanford and the country round about that thriving little 
city he has public-spiritedly assisted all local interests to the extent 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 689 

ut' his ability, lie is a member aud supporter of the Presbyterian 
churcli of lianford and he and his son affiliate with the lianford lodge 
of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. The latter, Fred Gibson, 
married Kate Simpson, a daughter of Dr. R. G. Simpson, of Indiana, 
and she lias borne Jiini three children, Glenn, Gertrude and Lnoile. 



M. P. BRAZILL 

The Portuguese farmer in California has set an example well 
worthy of emulation by those wiio are obliged to begin small aud are 
ambitious to achieve success aud i)rominence. (Jne such at Tulare, 
Tulare county, Cal., is M. P. Brazill, a native of the Azores, born 
December 9, 1871. He was eighteen years old, in 1890, when he came 
to Tulare county and went into the sheep business, ranging his flock 
through the San Joaquin valley and into the Sierra Nevadas. In 
a few years he owned eight thousand sheep and he continued in the 
Inisiness until 1904, when he sold it out in order to give his attention 
to an up-to-date ranch about a mile from the business center of 
Tulare, which he had bought in 1901. He owns eighty acres all in 
alfalfa and is raising hogs, but his principal business is dairying. He 
jTiilks seventy-three cows and sells tlaeir milk and other products in the 
city. In addition to the eighty acres which he owns he rents one 
hundred and eighty, thus making a dairy ranch of two hundred and 
sixty acres. As a dairyman he has won snccess beyond that of many 
others in central California. As a citizen he is popular liecause of 
his friendly disposition and of the real interest in the community 
which has conunanded the e.xercise of a conunendable i)ul)lic spirit. 
Fraternally he affiliates with the W. O. W., the U. P. E. C. and the 
I. I). K. S., which are among the numerous orders having local 
organizations at Tulare. 

In 1899 Mr. Brazill married Miss Eumui lloskius of Tulare, who 
bore him two children and died in 1902. Plis present wife, whom 
he married in 1904, was Miss Mary Vierra, of ()aklaud, Cal., and by 
this marriage he has four children. The six children are here named 
in the order of their nativity: Emma, Louisa, Lee, Angelina, Josephine 
and Ernest. 



ABSALOM BURTON 

One of the successful general ranchmen of Kings county is 

Absalom Burton, born in Missouri, February 18, ]85"J, a sou of 

Absalom i>urton, Sr. In 18()(;, wlien he was about fourteen vears of 



690 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

age, lie came to California with liis fathers family, and for three 
years thereafter helped the elder l^>nrton at his work in the coal mines 
at Mount Diablo, Contra Costa county. In 1873 the Burtons moved 
into the part of Tulare county which is now Kings county and took 
U}) land ten miles southwest of Ilanford, the title to which was subse- 
quently secured by payment on the part of the young Absalom Bur- 
ton's brother Richard. Absalom worked two years on the construction 
of the People's ditch, then started a herd of sheep, which he drove 
through a wide range of country round about and which he eventually 
sold to take up ranching. In 1873 he pre-empted one hundred and 
sixty acres of land, nine miles southwest of Ilanfortl, on which he 
made some improvements while working out on ranches in the neigh- 
borhood. Later he sold eighty acres of this tract to his brother. He 
bought laud six miles 'northeast of Yisalia, which he sold after hav^ing 
farmed it a few months, and then for six years he farmed a rented 
half-section on the lake. After that he engaged in hog raising, a few 
years, subsequently turning his attention to dairying. At present he 
milks twenty cows, raises about one hundred hogs annually and keeps 
an average of about two hundred stands of bees. About forty acres 
of his original eighty is under alfalfa. In June, 1908, the familv 
bought eighty acres east of his old homestead, forty acres of which 
he set out to peach, apricot and other orchard trees. The remaining 
forty acres he devotes to general farming. 

In 1882 Mr. Burton married Mrs. Elizabeth (Robinson) Ogden, 
a native of England, who bore him a son, A. F. Burton, who assists 
him in the management of his business. By a former marriage with 
John Ogden, Mrs. Burton had two children, William and Lettie. Mr. 
Burton is a generously helpful man, actuated by a lively public spirit. 



JOHN EWING. Jr. 

Conspicuous among the progressive farmers of Tulare county, 
whose many experiences in this country have made them the expert 
agriculturists they are to-day is John Ewing, Jr., the eldest and 
only survivor of the family of John and Margaret (Ewing) Ewing. 
The other members of this family are: Mrs. Margaret E. Bolton, 
whose sons were James and Charles; William, who left two children, 
Henry and Margaret; Mrs. Mary Sherman, whose three sons were 
David. John and William; Mrs. Elizabeth Swauson, who left two 
children, Elmer and Stella; Mrs. Isabella Sherman, whose children 
were Gilbert, Sanmel and a daughter. 

John Ewing, Jr., was l»orn in Pennsylvania, fifteen miles from 
Philadeliihia, April 3, 1840. In 1857 his family moved to Putnam 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 691 

county, 111., whence they came to California in 1876. He settled first at 
Big Oak Flats, in the mountains, thirty miles east of Visalia, where 
he early pre-empted one hundred and sixty acres of government land 
and with his sons now owns an entire section. He raised cattle there 
until lyuG, when he located two miles east of Visalia and operated a 
ranch under lease from Samuel Gilliam. Seventy acres were planted 
to alfalfa and a fiue dairy of fourteen Holsteiu cows engaged his time; 
he has also raised some good draft horses and now has a bay colt three 
years old, weighing sixteen hundred pounds, in which he takes much 
jiride. An average of fifty hogs was kept on the place, and Mr. Ewing 
became an ex^jert in these lines. A scientific farmer, his machinery 
and methods are up to date, and his ideas and his manner of executing 
them are as advanced as any farmer's in the county. 

In 1863 Mr. Ewing married Rachel Davis, a native of Pennsyl- 
vania, and they have several children. William H., of Exeter, married 
Jeanette Hatch, of San Francisco, and they have two children, Dorothy 
and Girard. John M. is a farmer near Visalia; he married Mary Cuda 
and they have two children, Salina and Emery. Mrs. Nira Kelley, 
next in order of birth, is a trained nurse and the mother of two 
sons, Cecil and Otis. Howard married Stella Chedester. and they 
have two daughters, Elva and Eileen. For a number of years Howard 
ran a pack team through the mountains and at times acted as a guide 
to tourists. He now assists his father in his ranching operations. 
Mr. Ewing is a man of strong convictions and has well defined ideas 
on all cjuestious of public policy, tie believes in the election of good 
and honest men to office and uses his influence as far as is possible to 
secure the nomination of such by his party. He is a man of undoubted 
public spirit, patriotically generous in support of all measures pro- 
posed for the general benefit. 



JOHN FRANS 

Ojie of the most successful stockmen of " Tulare cuuutv and a 
native son of California, having been born at Santa Rosa, So- 
noma county, January 11, 1S5!), is John Frans, who lives at No. 609 
South Court street, \'isalin. ilis fatlier, John B. Fi'aus, was born 
in Kentucky and lived tlicrc until, in bis young manlmod, lie removed 
to Missouri, to become a I'armci- in the vicinity of St. Joseph. Thei-e 
he enlisted for service in the Mexican war under (Jen. Sterling Piice. 
In IS.").'! he was one of a iiarty that came across the plains to Cali- 
foiiiia witli ox-teams. Reniaininn- sevei'al years at San Jose, he 
then went to Santa Rosa, where he farmed until 18().3, wlien he re- 
ino\ed to Tulare county and bought four hundred and twenty acres, 



69:2 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

three mileh aud a half east of ^'isalia. Here he farmed iiutil iu 
1870, wlieu his death occurred iu his fifty-third year. He married 
Miss Elizabeth Fultou, a native of Indiana, who survived him, but 
is now deceased, and of their three sons and five daughters, Johu 
Frans was tlie fourth child aud the youugest son. The other sur- 
viving children are: Thomas H. of Los Angeles; Mary; Mrs. Daniel 
Switzer of ^^isalia, and Mrs. Edward Hart, who lives near Farmers- 
ville. 

Johu Frans was educated in the common schools near his home, 
and in 1878 began faruiing the Fraus homestead -in pai-tuershij) with 
his brotluiVs, Thomas H. and James Madison, the latter of whom died 
three years later in his twenty-sixth year. In 1882 he bought his 
preseut rauch and iu 1886 l)egan farming independently. He has 
met with such success that he is classed with the prominent business 
men of the county. For the past five years he has rented his ranch. 
The Cross Hardware block, on Main street, Visalia, was built by 
Mr. PVans aud R. F. Cross, and later Mr, Frans bought Mr. Cross's 
interest in the property, thus becoming sole owner of one of the finest 
business properties in the city. 

It should be noted in passing that Mr. Frans and one or more 
of his brothers operated the old Frans ranch until their mother 
remarried. His beginning was small, but he has added to his 
original purchase until he is now the owner of a large and valualile 
property. Politically he is a Democrat, and as a citizen he has 
proven himself remarkably enterprising and public-spirited. He 
married, at Visalia. Miss Dora Jones, who was born at Santa Rosa, 
Cal., aud is a member of the Society of Native Daughters of the 
Golden West. They have a sou whom they have named in honor 
of his ])aternal grandfather, John B. Frans. 



JEREMIAH D. HYDE 

The Hyde family, of which Jeremiah D. Hyde is a member, 
is well known in this jiart of the country. Son of David and 
Sarah (Houghtaling) Hyde, natives of New York state, Jeremiah 
D. Hyde was born in Ulster county, the scene of a historic Huguenot 
settlement, aud died in Visalia, Tulare county, Cal., in 1897. He 
came from the Empire state with his brother, Richard E., mined 
with him and was with him in his mercantile venture at Santa 
Cruz. In 1873 he came to ^"isalia and was for many years re- 
ceiver in the United States land office in that town, and was also 
interested with his brother in lands in Tulare county. As a man 
of affairs he develojjed an admirable ability. His character was 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES fi93 

lofty and full of beauty and lie was patriotic, cliaritahle and de- 
voted to the advancement of the Inmian race aloni;- all lines of 
creditable endeavor. Tliongh not a ])ractical i)olitician. he wielded 
a recog'nized jjolitical influence, and while never an office-seeker, he 
was at times ))revailed upon in the interest of i)ublic welfare to 
accept ])nblic trusts. His interest iu education impelled him to 
consent to serve on the school board, which he did for some time, 
with much credit to himself and sj-reatly to the benefit of the local 
schools. His desire for certain refoi-ms and innovations led him 
to submit to election as a member of tlie board of trustees of 
^'isalia. He married Mary Schuler, a native of Iowa, and she bore 
liim two sons, Richard E. Hyde, Jr., and Dr. Lawrence D. Hyde, 
iioth citizens of ^'isalia. 

In Visalia, in 1878, was lioru Richard E. Hyde, Jr., son of 
Jeremiah D. Hyde and nei)hew and namesake of Richard E. Hyde, 
pioneer and financier. He was educated in the imblic schools and 
at the California State University at Berkeley. At present he has 
numerous ranch interests in Tulare county, and he is vice-president 
of the Visalia Savings bank and a director of the National Bank of 
Msalia. He was married, in 1905, to Miss Luella Burrel, daugh- 
ter of Cutlibert Burrel, and they have two children, Cnthliert Bur- 
rel and Richard E., Jr., Mr. Hyde is able and ready at all times 
to do bis full duty as a citizen as he has often heard it defined iw 
his honored father and uncle, and his many friends in the business 
conmmnity regard him as a woi'thy successor of those useful and 
influential citizens of a day now past, but not soon to be forgotten. 



HOMER C. TOWNSEND 

A native of Noblesville, Ind., born January 8, 18;?2, Homer C. 
Townsend crossed the ))lains to California in 18.32. prospered in the 
land of his adoption and died in 188.), after a career in many ways 
interesting. He was but twenty yeai's old when he came to the state, 
young, hoi)eful, ambitions and determined to succeed. After a long 
journey full of trials, of dangei's and of weariness, he arrived at 
a i)oint on the American river, and there lie began mining, con- 
tinuing in 18,54 and 18,55 at Placeivillc. Eldorado county. lie then 
was ready to take to ranching, and he followed this near Sacra- 
mento, remaining till in 18,')(), when he came to \'isalia. In the 
spring of that year he located on the old Pratt place, on which he 
lived about a year, and then again became a miner, operating on 
White river in Kern county, meanwhile having an exjierience as a 
a:'-ocer, in a venture in which he had Ira Kinney as a partner 



694 TULARE AXD KINGS COUNTIES 

Back to Visalia Mr. 'I'ownsend soon came, now to i^o into the 
Iiarness and saddlery hnsiuess, in company with Mr. Bossier. He 
served his fellow citizens as ))ul)lic administrator of Tulare county 
eight years and as deputy county assessor for a shorter period. 
Eventually he engaged in stock-raising and farming on a ranch 
two miles east of ^'isalia, where, in the course of events, he was 
washed out of house and home hy a flood. His next location was 
at a ranch on the Mill road, in the mountains, which he bouglit 
and devoted to raising cattle and horses. There he lived out his 
days and passed from the scenes of earth. His widow conducted 
the ranch a few years after his demise, then sold it; l)efore her 
marriage she was Miss Elizabeth Huston. She was born in Ar- 
kansas and her father was a pioneer in California, long well known 
in Tulare county. This daughter of one ]iioneer and wife of an- 
other, who now lives at Visalia, was the mother of children as 
follows : James H., who married Myrtle Pattie and has two sons, 
Russell H. and Ray "W. ; Thomas H., who has passed away; Fan- 
nie M., who is the wife of S. Sinunons of Coalinga, C'al.. and P^rauk 
A., of Montana. 

A man of tine character, devoted to the development of his 
town, state and county, Mr. Townsend was a model citizen, active, 
patriotic and useful. The vicissitudes through which he passed 
in his earlier years here were a good jireparation for the main 
struggle of his life which brought him success, contentment and 
honor. 



ALBERT KNIERR 

Born in Baden-Baden, Germany, in 1868, Albert Knierr came 
to the United States when he was sixteen years old and made his 
way to Burlington, Iowa, where he was employed a year as a 
butcher. During the next four years he traveled quite extensively 
in Illinois, Kansa;; and < 'olorado, stopping from time to time in 
one town after another to work at his trade. Eventually he came 
to California, arriving in San Francisco in 1889. For a time he 
worked there at his trade; then, with a Mr. Allan as his ]>artnei-, 
he started a small slaughter house, killing one or two cows a day. 
Their business began to grow and at length advanced almost by 
leaps and bounds, and at this time they have one of the largest 
and best appointed slaughter houses on the Pacilic coast and carry 
on a very heavy wholesale business. Their sanitary cold storage 
plant at Fifth and Railroad avenues, San Francisco, cost $50,000; 
they kill eight hundred cattle monthly and one hundred and fifty 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 695 

sheep daily. In 190!^) Mr. Pyle became a member of the lirm ami 
its style was ehau.ned to Knierr, Allan & Pyle. Mr. Kiiierr has 
always attended to the outside wmk of the concern, traxelin.n' in its 
interest and Imyiiii;- catth' wherevei- he conld do so to tlic best 
advantage, lie has bouglit many in Tulare county in the last 
twelve years, and in 1!)()I» he established his home in Visalia, at No. 
415 South Conrt street. lie has large personal interests in the 
county, owning three tliousand acres of cattle-grazing laud between 
Tipton and Angiola and leasing six thousand acres near that tract 
and five thousand acres near Cross creek. On these large ranges 
he constantly keeps lifteen hundred to twenty-five hundred head of 
■ cattle. At ^'isalia he is known, as he has long been known in San 
Erancisco, as a man of great {)ulilic sjiirit, who is alive to the liest 
interests of the community. In the world of commerce he is rated 
as one of the best informed butchers in the country. His success 
in life has been won fairlv and in the o))en, and those who know 
him best realize that it is richly deserved. 

By his marriage to Miss Marcella Rowan, Mr. Knierr had four 
children, Byron, Marcella, Alberta and Erancisco. Byron is de- 
ceased. Mrs. Knierr died in IfllO and in IDll he mai'ried her sister. 
Miss Annie Rowan. 



R. L. BERRY 

Among these i)ublic-s))irited citizens of Tulare county who have 
I)nt forth their efforts toward promoting better conditions, is R. L. 
Beny, who was l)orn May (i, 1860, in Tuolumne county, Cal., a son 
of John M. Berry, a native of Missouri. The latter in 1857 came 
aci-oss the i)lains with ox teams to California, and his widow, a na- 
tive of Virginia, is sui'vi\-ing liim at the advanced age of eighty- 
seven years. 

When R. L. Berry was ten years did lie was taken by bis par- 
ents to Tulare county and the family settled on the site of Lindsay 
when their house was one of two within the present limits of the 
city. The boy was given some opportunities for schooling but was 
early called u))on to take the place of a hand at hei'ding shee)) 
and made familiar with tlie details of dry farming as it was ))rac- 
ticed in the district at that time. Most of the land for many miles 
round about was government laud subject to entiy. Some years 
after his arrival there he enteicd three (piartei'-sections, but even- 
tually went to Kern county and abandoned all claim to them. Re- 
turning later he took up farming and buying and selling land and 



cm TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

has since handled or operated tracts aggregating a considerahle 
acreage. 

In 1879 Mr. Berry married Miss Ella Berry, a native of San 
Joaquin county, and she has borne him a daughter, Hthel May, who 
is the wife of F. (}. Hamilton, superintendent of the Mount Whit- 
ney Power company of Visalia, C'al. In his political afliliations 
Mr. Berry is a Socialist. Fraternally he affiliates with the Wood- 
men of the World and the AVomen of Woodcraft of Lindsay, Mrs. 
Berr.\ being also a me]nl)er of the order last mentioned. He is a 
friend of public education and an ardent i)romoter of good roads. 
In fact, no demand inade u])on him on behalf of the conunimity 
fails to receive his ready and helpful response. 



JOEL KNEELAND 

A native of New England, Joel Kneeland was born in Vermont 
in 18.S0. In 1860 he removed with his family to Shawnee county. 
Kans. In 1870 the family went to the westei-ii pai-t of the same 
county and carried on farming there until 1874, when the father 
died. Subsequently the son came with his mother to Red Bluff, 
Cal.. where they farmed four years, and from there they removed 
to Mr. Kneeland's ])i'esent ranch, where he has since prospered. 
The woman who became Mr. Kneeland's wife was Agnes Wilson, 
of Scotch descent, who came to California about twenty years ago. 
They have five children: Eugene S., Francis F., Joel M., Mary ()., 
and \Villis W., of whom the three eldest are attending school. 

Politically the father of Mr. Kneeland was a Rei)ublican, and 
he himself is a Socialist. His mother died at the age of sixty 
years, and her mother lived to the advanced age of eighty-seven. 
Mr. Kneeland is a member of the Farmers' Union and affiliates with 
the Modern Woodmen. As a farmer he ranks with the best in his 
neighborhood. Of his thirty-acre farm he has three acres under 
alfalfa, most of the remainder being ])astnre land. He keei)s (ifteen 
to eighteen head of stock, and from twelve to twentv hogs. 



S. (lAVOTTO 

The name of Gavotto indicates the Italian origin, and it was 
in Italy that S. Gavotto was born March 18, 1865. . There he grew 
to uuinhood, was educated in the schools and learned lessons of 
industry and economy. In 1884, when he was about nineteen years 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 697 

old, he left 1/is native land and in 1S86 located in Sacramento, Cal.. 
where lie was emi)loyed until 1881), then eomins- for the first time 
to Tiilare. He almost iminediately went noi'th, however, Init in 
1890 came back and ))aid $800 for an interest in a small ranch 
which i)roved sncli a failure that he lost his entire investment. He 
then bought a lease of the D. A. Fox ranch with some stock that 
was on the place of a Mr. Pike, who had been operating the 
property. Establishing a dairy, he sold milk in Tulare until 1898, 
when he dis])osed of his entire dairy and farming interests. For 
four years thereafter he worked for wages, saving liis money and 
phuming for the future, and then embarked in the cattle business 
in a small way. After the l)onds were burned in 1893, he bought 
seventy- acres just outside the city limits of Tulare and established 
another dairy, and he now has ten cows and kee]is an average 
of about seven hogs. Twenty acres of his land is under alfalfa 
and he farms a few acres to corn and a few other acres to grain, 
producing only enough feed for his stock. 

In 1895 Mr. Gavotto united his fortunes witli those of Margaret 
Monteverde, by marriage. This lady, who is a native of Italy, has 
two sons by a former marriage and their Christian names are An- 
drew and P"'rank. She has borne her ))resent husband children 
named Lucca, Carlo, Henry and William. Mr. Gavotto is a man 
of nuich i)ublic spirit and of a genial and social disi)osition. Fra- 
ternally he associates with the Tulare organization of the Woodmen 
of the World. 



JOHN KLINDERA 

The pojiular citizen mentioned above, the second of the name 
to be known and honored in Tulare county, was born in Visalia 
in ]87.'5. and is a son of John Klindera, Sr., and his wife, Annie. 
His father was born in Bohemia in 1843, made his way eventually 
to Chicago, and fi'om there came by way of New York around the 
Horn to (California in 18()."). He remained in San Francisco until 
in 1807, and then took up his residence in Visalia, where he be- 
came an accountant in the mer'cantile estal)lishment of R. E. Hyde 
& Co. Later he went into sheep raising, three miles west of 
Tulare, whei'e, in 1878, he was killed by a falling tree. He left 
four childi-en, viz.: Robert is a railroad man and lives at Mon- 
talvo, Cal.; (1. \V. lives in Fresno; Lillie is the wife of Ed Tribau, 
and John, Ji'. The nu)thei' of these children still survives. 

John Klindera, Jr., lived three miles west of Tulare until he 
was six years old, then moved to Tipton, where he was i-eared and 



698 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

educated. With his brothers, he went into the sheep business witli 
sheep which they brought from the lunne phice, and soon bought 
one hundred and sixty acres of land, tlieir mother three hundred 
and twenty acres and one of tlie Ijrothers two hundred and forty 
acres. They erected brick buildings on this property, improved it 
otherwise, and eventually sold it. Meanwhile, in 1884, they disposed 
of their shee]) and after that they raised grain on their land until 
1!M)5. Then John engaged in dairying and stock-raising on four 
hundred and eighty acres of the Ci'owley ranch, near Tipton, on 
which he also grew grain. In 1909 he rented six hundred and forty 
acres of the Dresser ranch, of which sixty acres is in alfalfa. He 
milks thirty cows and raises horses, cattle and hogs, considerable 
of his acreage lieiug devoted to pasture. 

In 1898 Mr. Klindera married Miss Ethel Thomas and they have 
a son, Martie Klindera, named in honor of his grandfather, Martie 
Thomas, who was a pioneer in Tulare coimty and in California. 
Mr. Klindera owns and rents out a dairy ranch of forty acres on 
the Hauford road, a mile and a half west of Tulare. He is a stock- 
holder in the Tipton Co-operative Creamery company and the cream 
from his place is marketed with that concern. He affiliates with the 
Tipton oi'ganization of the Woodmen of the World and as a citizen 
is public-s]iiritedly liclpfiU to all imiiortaut interests of the com- 
nnmitv. 



GEORGE D. RAMSEY 

Among the re|)resentative farmers in the vicinity of Hanfoi-d 
is George D. Ramsey, who was born in Knox county. Mo., Octol)er 
28, 1866, a son of John Wilson and Eliza A. (McVey) Ramsey. 
The elder Ramsey was born April 3, 1843, in Adams county. III., 
remaining there until moving to Knox county, Mo. Here he lived 
until he brought his family to California in 1871. Arriving in this 
state he settled near Danville, C*ontra Costa county, one year later 
he went to the Panoche valle>- in Fresno county, and three years 
later came to what is now Kings county, settling on the Hanford 
and Tulare road. He was a member of the Settlers' league during 
the Mussel slough troubles. He worked on the Lakeside ditch and 
helped build and was superintendent of the Mussel slough ditch, 
also working on the construction of the Wutchumna ditch. Later 
he settled down to farming and was one of the first men to put in 
a crop on Tulare lake, from which he reajjcd a good harvest. He 
had to do with every progressive mo\'ement in the county, was a 
Mason before leaving for the west, and also held membershiji in 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 699 

the A.O.U.W. for mauy years. While a resident of Fresno county 
he served as deputy sheriff and during his life was for many years 
a school trustee. From 1906 he made his home with his son, George 
D., his death occurring January 24, 1912, aged nearly sixty-nine 
years. His wife passed awa>- on Deceml)er 14, 18!)4, aged forty- 
eight. Their three children sui'vive, John Theodore, George D., 
and Mrs. Effie P. McClellnii. 

George D. Ramsey was lnought to Californin by his parents 
when he was about five years of age, and in October, 1875, was 
brought to Kings, then Tulare, county. He attended school until 
he was about sixteen years old, meanwhile working with his father 
on the I'auch, and eventually he took up farming for himself; and 
he later drifted into the dairy business, in which he is now making 
a substantial success. Kings county remained his home until 1901, 
when he moved to Elk Grove, Sacramento county, anil during the 
ensuing five years made a success of his venture there. Returning 
to Kings county at the end of that time he bought eighty acres of 
land from his father and engaged in raising hogs and horses and 
cultivating fruit. He is constantly developing his place along 
those different lines and in each of them has come to the front. 
What success he has made has been by his own efforts. 

On November 20, 1898, Mr. Ramsey was united in marriage 
with Mrs. Margaret P. (Jones) Lewis, and of this union four chil- 
dren have been born: Velma I., George E., John IL, and Delbert 
E. Wherever he has lived Mr. Ramsey has exercised a generous 
public spirit which has won him recognition as a helpful citizen, 
for he has been solicitious for the general welfare and devoted to - 
the best interests of his fellow townsmen of all classes. 



JEFFERY J. LaMARSNA 

The life of Jeffery J. LaMarsna embraced the period from 
1846, when he was born in Canada, to January 24, 1907, when he 
died at his home in Tulare, Tulare county, Cal. As a bal)e of six 
weeks he was brought from his birth-])lace to Michigan, whence his 
parents later removed to Illinois, and there he grew up and ac- 
quired some little education in i)ublic schools. In 1862, when he 
was only about sixteen years old, he enlisted in the One Hundred 
and Twenty-seventh Illinois Volunteer Infantry and did soldier's 
duty in the Civil war until h<' lost a leg in the battle of Kenesaw 
Mountain. When he was able to leave the hosi)ital he returned 
to his home, crippled for life, when but in his eighteenth year. 

In 1872, when he was about twentv-six vears old. Mr. La- 



700 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Marsna married Miss Maria Clougli, a native of New Hampshire, 
and tliey soon afterward moved to Pottawatomie county, Kas., 
wliere, in association with his father and lirother, lie raised cattle 
and sheep sixteen years. Then his services as a soldier and the 
bodily sacrifice he had made for his country were recognized by his 
appointment to a ])osition in the ])ension office at \Yashing1on, D. C. 
After he had labored there four years, he was transferred to Ohio, 
where for three years he was in the field work of the department. 

In 1887 Mr. LaMarsua came to California and located on a 
farm at Woodville, where he raised crops and stock nntil 190o. 
Then he moved to Tnlare, where he made his home imtil he passed 
away. His ranch of eighty acres was sold when he gave up farm- 
ing. As a citizen he was always patriotic and public spirited. 
Members of the Grand Army of the Republic were proud to hail 
him as a comrade and he affiliated also with the Royal Society of 
Good Fellows. 

The children of Jeffery J. and Marie (Clough) LaMarsna, four 
in number, are named as follows: John Walter, who is a rancher 
at Woodville; Eber II., who is rei^resented in these pages by a 
separate sketch; G. C.. who is an ele<'trician. and Ella, who is well 
known in Tulare. 



BKXJAMIX E. McCLURE 

A member of an old-established family in central California, 
Benjamin E. McClure is the grandson of Thomas McClure. who 
was a very early settler in Woodland, where he built the first lilack- 
smith shop and followed that trade. James M. McClure, father 
of Benjamin, was a native of Missouri, as was also his wife, Sarah 
(Ely) McClure. In the early '50s James M. came overland to this 
state and in 1857 his mother came by way of Cape Horn. Mr. Mc- 
Clure identified himself with the best interests of Yolo county in 
his time and spent most of his life there, winning a success that 
placed him among the enterprising men of that section. 

Benjamin E. McClure was born at Buckeye, near "Winters, 
Yolo county, in 1806. In the public schools near his father's home 
he was a student in his childhood and boyhood. He began his active 
career in Y'olo county and won distinction there as a successful 
farmer, operating land in farms of a single congressional section 
to immense tracts which inchuled five thousand or more acres. He 
remained there till 1902, when he sold out his Y'olo county interests 
and came to A'isalia. Seeing the value of real estate investment 
there he l)ought eighteen acres in the southern part of the city, 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 701 

wliicii lie developed iuto oue of the tiuest homes in its vicinity, 
and thirty-five acres south of his home, wliit'h he cut up iuto oue- 
acre lots, on twenty-one of which houses have ))een erected and 
families are living. On his homestead he has a four-acre alfalfa 
field, from which he cut forty tons of hay in 1910 with only oue 
irrigation. For some years, until 1912, he leased the Coombs ranch 
of two huudred and forty acres and farmed it with good results. 
He cleared up the land and raised five cr<)|)s. In 1911 lie planted 
fifty acres to Egyptian corn and later sowed the same land to 
barley, which yielded twenty sacks to the acre. In li)10 he sowed 
eighty aci'es to l)arley with like results. With such an experience 
to refer to, he is naturally enthusiastic in praise of Tulare couuty 
as a place of residence and a ))romising field for the endeavors 
of the scientific farmer. He owns two eight-nmle teams, one of 
which is employed in grading alfalfa laud in the county, the other 
on street work at Dinuba. Socially Mr. McClure affiliates with the 
Woodmen of the World. 

In 1896 Mr. McClure married Miss Ida B. Bearing, born in 
California. Mrs. McClure was born in California, the third of 
a family of eight children of John W. and Martha E. (Morris) 
Bearing, the former of whom was born in Missouri, was a pioneer 
of this state and died in 1884.. Mrs. Bearing survives and makes 
her home with the McClures, enjoying splendid health. Both Mr. 
and Mrs. Bearing were California pioneers, the former crossing 
the ])laius with his father in 1849, driving ox-teams, and upon ar- 
rival he engaged in gold mining near Hangtown. The mother came 
overland by way of Texas when a little girl about six years of age, 
and her father "Uncle" Bickie Morris was one of the founders 
of Woodland and at one time owned eighty acres where the county 
hos])ital of Yolo couuty is now situated. Mr. and Mrs. Bearing 
were married in Lake couuty. 

The beautiful residence of the McClures was built in 19(j;! on 
the homestead and is a model of architectural elegance. Here Mr. 
and Mrs. McClure dispense a broad and liberal hospitality. 



HARRISON F. PEACOCK 

Well known throughout central California as a fruit grower, 
Harrison F. Peacock of Hanford, Kings county, was born in Oneida 
county, N. Y., May 5, 1836. There he remained until he was twelve 
years of age and then began his education in the public schools near 
the home of his childhood. Then he was taken to Wayne county, 
in the same state, where from his sixteenth year to Becember, 



702 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

1863, he was engaged as a farm hand, and thus he had begun his 
career as a self-made man, and it was to be continued as a soldier. 
In the year last mentioned he enlisted in Company B, Ninth New 
York Hea\-j^ Artillery, for service in the Civil war. He participated 
in quite a number of important engagements and in many that 
were less noteworthy, was promoted to be a sergeant and received 
honorable discharge at the end of his term of enlistment, in 1865 
at the close of the war, and was discharged from the Second Heavy 
Artillery. 

In 1868 Mr. Peacock came to California and settled in Nai)a 
county, where he found emi)loyment at mason work in which he 
had had enough experience to gain a practical knowledge of the 
trade. He stuck to such employment for years, until his health 
failed, then turned to farming and teaming. Eventually he took 
up railroad laud in Tulare, now Kings county, which he still 
owns and on which he has made his home since 1875. While his 
rareer here has not been without its reverses, his prosperity has 
been in a general way i)rogressive and his success compares favor- 
ably with tliat of any farmer of the better class in his vicinity. 
During recent years he has given much attention to fruit grow- 
ing, which he lias made a source of considerable profit. He has 
taken an iutelligeut interest in irrigation and was one of the build- 
ers of the Lakeside ditch. 

As a member of the (Irand Army of the Republic, Mr. Pea- 
cock keeps in touch with comrades of the Civil war period. He 
married, January 25, 1872, Miss Rebecca J. Bonham, a native of 
Illinois, and they had three children: Mary, deceased; (irace and 
George ; of these George is in the dairy business in Kings county. 
As a citizen Mr. Peacock is ])ublic-spirited to a degree that makes 
him heljiful to the community. 



BRIGHT EARL BARNETT 

Born in Kings county, Cal., October 15, 1886, Briglit Earl 
Barnett attended public schools near his boyhood home until lie 
was sixteen years old. After that lie was employed liy his father 
on the hitter's ranch until he attained his majority, when he took 
up the liattle of life for himself and met with much success. He 
is managing, at tliis time, three hundred and twenty acres of well 
improved laud, which he devotes to the purposes of stock-raisiui;- 
and dairying. He has a vineyard of fifteen acres, keeps forty milch 
cows and raises many hogs. One hundred and fifty acres of his 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 703 

laud is used for pasturage aud for the produrtiou of alfalfa, of 
which he harvests froui four to six crops annually. 

Fratei'ually Mr. Barnett affiliates with the Independent Order 
of Odd Fellows. He takes intelligent interest in public affairs 
from the ])oiut of view of his ])arty and is ready at all times to 
respond with prompt generosity to any call on behalf of the com- 
munity at large, and there is no proposition which in his judgment 
promises to benefit his conanunity that does not have his cordial 
encouragement and support. On December 23, 1907, he married 
Miss Vera Kussell, a native of Pike county, Tlliuois, born Novem- 
ber 27, 1884, and she bore him a son, Glenn Ray Barnett, who was 
born Mav 8, 1911. 



CUTHBERT BURREL 

In Wayne county, in central New York, Guthbei't Buri'el was 
l)i)rn November 28, 1824. a son of George and Mary (Robinson) 
P>ui-rel, natives of England, his grandfather, for whom he was 
luimed, being an English squire. Of his parents' nine children, 
Cuthbert was the fourth in order of nativity. In 1834, when he 
was ten years old, his people moved to Plainfield, Will county, 
111., where he attended school and grew to man's estate. He crossed 
the ])rairies and mountains to Galifornia in 1846, driving an ox- 
team, and consuming almost six months' time in making the jour- 
ney. Stephen A. Cooper was the leader of the party which with 
its belongings constituted the train. 

For about six months Mr. Burrel was in army service under 
Fremont, and after his discharge ho went to Sutter's Foi"t, and 
there he found the wagon in which be had made his overland jour- 
ney. Procuring it, be traveled in it to Youht's ranch, in Na])a 
county, taking with liim one of the children of the histoi'ic Domier 
l)arty. Later he went to Sonora, where he was employed during 
the summer of 1847 by Salvator Vallejo, and for his work received 
$100 cash, one hundred firkins of wheat and two hundred heifers. 
In 1848, working in a bay Held in Suisun valley one day, he was 
a])proacbed ))y John Pattou, who showed $r)00 worth of gold that 
he had brought down from the mt)untains, assuring Mr. Burrel and 
flic latter 's com])anions that there was plenty more whei'e that 
had come from. The haymakers at once determined to work no 
longer in flic field, sold their interests in the lia\' and set out for 
the mines. Mr. Piui-rel mined three years, hut soon after leaving 
the mines, he bought land in Green valley, Solano county, where 
he fanne(l and raised stock until 1860. Then he sold his ranch for 



7(14 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

tliirteon Imiidred and eleven liead of cattle, wliich lie drove to the 
Elkboru rancli in Fresno county, where lie raised stock until his 
death, acquiring there a ranch of twenty thousand acres, lie was in 
the east during the period 1S71-1874. Coming back to California 
in the latter year, he bought a thousand acres of land in Tulare 
county, five miles northwest of Visalia. and later he bought an addi- 
tional thousand acres. 

In 187o Mr. Burrel married Mrs. Adaliza H. Adams, who has 
borne him four children, three of whom are living: Varina J.. May 
and Luella (Mrs. Richard E. Hyde, Jr.). Mr. Burrel was a member 
of the Society of California Pioneers and was widely known 
throughout the San Joaquin valley. He found time from his 
farming and stock-raising to interest himself in business and com- 
mercial matters, as is evidenced by the fact that he was a director 
of the First National Bank of San Jose, and assisted in the found- 
ing of the Bank of Visalia. His landed interests became extensive 
and he was one of the leading men in his vicinity. He died Aug- 
ust 7, 1893, deeply regretted by a wide circle of acijuaintances. 



WALTER FRY 

The family of F^ry is an old one in America and in different 
generations rejtresentatives of it have attained prominence. An 
offshoot of one branch of it located rather early in Iroquois county, 
III., and there Walter Fry was born in 1859. His father, a native 
of Ohio, died in 1897; his mother, who was of Illinois birth. i)assed 
away when he was ten years old. When he was nine years old 
the boy was taken from the Prairie state to Kansas, and he lived 
there and in Oklahoma, by turns a cowboy, a miner, a rancher and 
deimty United States marshal, till he came to Tulare in 1887. 
Then he was given employment with the railroad company and 
was made a peace officer, in which capacity he served until 1895. 
Duriig the succeeding two years he lived elsewhere, and in 1899 
he moved on his present homestead, conqirising fifty-five acres, near 
Three Rivers. He has for some time been in charge of General 
Grant park and Sequoia park, with official standing as a ranger, 
and acting superintendent, which latter position he holds at the 
present time. With a record of eleven years' service under the 
United States government, he has for eight years filled his present 
position, for which he was selected by the Secretary of the In- 
terior because of his sjiecial fitness and experience. As rancher, 
cowboy and ranger he has spent most of his years out doors. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 705 

and liis life has boon tlic full, free, hroad life of the western plains, 
forests and mountains. 

Jii lS7i( Mr. I''iy married Miss Saiah A. llinf>ins, a native of 
Illinois, wliose father, John T. Ilinniiis, died in Illinois in 1880 
p.nd whose motlier is liviui^ in Tnlare. Mr. and Mrs. Fry liave 
foui- children, two of whom are citizens of this eonnty. Frater- 
nally, Mr. Fry afliliates with the Exeter lodge of lndei)endent Order 
of Otld Fellows and with the loeal division of the auxiliary order 
of Rebekahs, in which Mrs. Fry also holds membership. As a 
citizen Mr. Fry is |)ublie-si>irited ti> a notable degree, ready at 
all times to assist to the extent of his ability any movement which, 
in his good judgment, is i)romising of benelit to the connnunity. 



ALBERT PRATT HOWE 

A native-born son of Kings county, C'al., wiio is achieving suc- 
cess on his native heatli is A|])ert Pratt Howe, of Guernsey. It 
was in 1881 that Mr. Howe was ))orn and he was reared in the 
Lakeside district and educated in the public schools near his home. 
He and his brother Edwin and their father farmed on the lake 
bottom from 1898 to lOOfi, when they were driven from their land 
by the filling up of the lake. Before this catastrophe the lirothers 
had bought of their father the farm of one hundred and sixty acres, 
eight miles southwest of Hanford, now owned by Edwin Howe, 
and there they farmed several years as partners. In 1906 Albert 
sold out his interest there to his brother and bought two hundred 
and seventy-fi\e acres at Guernsey and eighty acres one mile south 
of that idace. The lan<l has been im))rove(l v.ith a new house and 
a barn, occupying a groun<l space of r)(ix8() feet, with a capacity for 
the storage of one hundred tons of hay. OI' the two hundred and 
seventy-five-acre tract, one hundred and twenty acres is in alfalfa, 
the balance being' farm land and pasture. Mr. Howe sows fort>' 
to sixty acres to grain each year. The eighty-acre tract is im- 
proved ))astnre land. 

The ))rinci))al business of Mr. Howe is in stock-raising and 
dairying, though he raises some hogs, and he milks an average 
of about thirty-live dairv cows. From his farming and dairying 
he has spared some time and money for investment otherwise. He 
married, in 1!)07, Miss Elvira Comfort, daughter of B. G. Com- 
fort, who is well known in Kings county, and she has borne him 
two daughters and one son, Carrie, Eunice and Earl. Mi-. Howe 
is a wide-awake man who takes an interest in everything that can 
possibly influence the public good. He is es])ecially interested in the 



706 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

development of the oommimity with which he casts his lot and is 
ready at all times to give geuerous aid to any movement proposed 
for the general uplift. 



LOUIS X. GLOVER 

A leader in things agrienltiual, who lives six miles south of 
Tulare city in Tulare county, Cal., and was born in the historic 
old state of Kentucky, October 2. 18(iO. is Louis N. Glover. He 
passed his boyhood and youth in the pul)lic schools and on the 
farm and when he was twenty-one years old went to Nebraska, 
whence after six mouths' residence there he went to Colorado. 
Two niontlis spent tliere determined him to come to California, 
and lie rarived at Stockton, October 10, 1882. In that same autumn 
he found employment on Roberts' island, and then, after three 
months spent at Lockeford, he came to Tulare county January 23, 
1883, in response to an invitation of friends who had bought land 
there. I^iking his surroundings, he entered the em])loy of Paige iS: 
Morton and marked off the land and set out the hrst orchard on 
the ranch of that firm, for whose cannery he employed all help. 
It is said that this was the first establishment of its kind in the 
county. After three years' connection with that enterprise, he 
began to farm rented land and at one time worked fourteen hun- 
dred acres. After operating the Laurel Colony property se^•en 
years, he put in two years at dairying in a modest way, and in 
the fall of 1904 he bougiit three lumdred and five acres, six miles 
south of Tulare, on wliich he conducts a daiiy of forty-eight cows, 
raises stock, keeps twenty-two head of horses, feeds one hundred 
and fifty head of liogs and maintains a growing venture in poultry. 
One hundred and seventy acres of his land is devoted to alfalfa 
and on the lialance he raises corn and grain, lie was one of the 
l)romoters of, and is a stockholder in, the Dairymen's Co-operative 
creamery, and he helped to estal)lish the old Co-operative creamery 
at Tulare. Of the Tule River Riparian Water association he was 
the organizer and it was largely through his influence that cer- 
tain historic differences concerning water rights near that river 
were finally adjusted to the satisfaction of all concerned. The 
official title of the association is now the Tule River Riparianist, 
incorporated. Its district comjirises the country between the sum- 
mit and the lake. One of Mr. Glover's possessions is a good resi- 
dence property in Tulare. 

,\t Tulare, Mr. Glover married, April 12, 1893, Miss Ettie 
Moody, a native of Kentucky, who has borne him three children. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 707 

one of wlioiii (liod in infancy. Their son, James Earl, died Decem- 
))er 1, 1!KI7. Tiieir danslitei', \lrnia, born October 21, 1895, is a 
pupil in the hiiili school at Tulare. Fraternally, Mr. Glover affiliates 
with the Tulare ori>;uiization of the "Woodmen of the World and 
with the Watsonville organization of the Yeomen. As a citizen, 
he is helpfully ])ublic-spirited, never withholding his support from 
any movenu'iit which he deems conducive to the good of the com- 
munitv. 



D. W. LEWIS 

( 'orcorau. Kings county, Cal., is the home of D. W. Lewis, 
president of the Tulare I^ake Dredging company, who has made 
his home in that enterprising town since 1906. He was born in 
Redlake, Beltrami county, Minn., November 24, 1848, and while 
young was taken by his parents to Morrison county, where he livel 
until he was fourteen. . At that time he was done with the public 
school at Bellejilaine, Minn., and became a student at Oheran col- 
lege. His studies were soon cut short, however, by his enlistment 
in the United States army, in which he saw arduous and hazard- 
ous service during the latter i)art of the Civil war. In ISdli he 
came to California and lived i)rinci])ally in Santa Cruz and Santa 
Clara counties, lie ti'aveled over \arious ])arts of the state, and 
from Santa Clara county he moved to Fresno county in tS7.>, 
wliei'e he established the first commercial nui'sery in the valley 
south of Stockton, which he conducted until 19(l(), and then came 
to Kings county. His hi'st veiitnie there was to i)lant out a tract 
of land to asparagus, but he soon relin(|uished the latter business 
to embark in a dredging enterprise and organized the Tulare 
Lake Dredging company, of which he is president. This Imsiness 
has been hinhly successful and' of much benefit to th(> country in 
which it has been operated. Meanwhile, Mr. Lewis has also given 
attention to wheat farming, which has brought good results. 

In 1866 Mr. Lewis married Miss Margaret Clark, a native of 
New York city, who has been his helpmate and adviser in the 
vaiioiis interests to which he has devoted himself from time to 
time. They ai'c a genial and heli)ful coiqile, and their kindly 
intei-est in all with whoiii they conie in contact insures them a 
welcome wherexer they may go. Public spirited to an unusual 
degiee, ^Ir. iicwis extends aid cheerfully and generously to anv 
T!U?asure which, in his ojjinion, promises to promote the genei'al 
welfare or to enhance the jn-osperity of any considerable number 
of his fellow citizens. 



708 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIF^S 

HENRY F. ROCK 

Tliat progressive merebaut and real estate investor of Armona, 
Kings county, Cal., Henry F. Rock, was born in Sbasta county, in 
tbis state, Sei)tember 12, 1870. His youtb and tbe earlier years 
of bis nianbood were passed on a farm and lie was educated in 
tbe public scbool in liis lionie district. "Wben lie was about twenty- 
nine years old be located on a farm in Fresno county, wbicb be 
operated witb varying success for some years. By tbis time be 
bad made u\> bis mind that lie would l)e a mercbant and bad saved 
money witb wbicb to go into lousiness. Buying tbe O. B. Hanan 
store at Centerville, Fresno county, be conducted it four years, 
meanwbile farming on rented land in tbe vicinity. In 1907 be 
closed out tbe merchandise business to Messrs. Elliott & Coleman 
of Conejo, Fresno county, and came to Armona, Kings county, to 
take over tbe well establisbed mercantile enterprise of Muller 
Brotbers, wbo bad been trading bere five years. He bas since 
liandled tbe business witb increasing success. From bis mercban- 
dising be bas found time to interest bimself in real estate, and bas 
acquired an interest in town and country ])roperty, in diiTerent 
alfalfa ranches and in a farm of seventy-eigbt acres. Besides, be 
is a stockholder in tbe commission bouse of Zaiser Brothers, Los 
Angeles. 

Fraternally, Mr. Rock affiliates with Lucerne lodge No. 27;"), 
I.O.O.F., Hanford. He married, November 6, 18!M). Miss Lora 
Burner, at Glenburn, Sbasta county. She was born in Colusa county, 
and bas borne bim four children, only one of whom survives, Carl 
E., wbo was educated in the public scbool of Armona and Heald's 
Business College at Fresno, and is now engaged in the bakery 
business at Armona. Taking a deep and abiding interest in tbe 
u])lift and develoi)meut of bis community, Mr. Rock bas proven 
bimself dependable wben demand is made for aid in movements 
for the ))ublic good. 



J. C. C. RUSSELL 

One of the few memliers of Kings county bar, wbo is a native 
of tbe Golden state, is J. C. C. Russell, wbo bas offices in tbe First 
National Bank building at Hanford. Mr. Russell was born Jan- 
nary 8, 1868, in Merced county, seven miles south of tbe site of 
Merced, a son of J. C. C. Russell, Sr.. and bis wife, Sopbia M.. 
who was a daughter of Dr. T. 0. Ellis. Tbe latter was a pioneer in 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 709 

'I'lilare and Fresno cuuntifs and once prominent as a physician. 

The elder Russell, a native of Winchester, Tenn., came to Cali- 
fornia in ]84i), when he was eiithteen years old, and after mining 
for a while, went to Los Angeles, where he remained until April, 
1857, when he settled in Marijiosa, within the ])reseut limits of 
Mereed county. Here he Jiomesteaded government land, which he 
im))roved and on which he farmed and raised stock until his death, 
which occurred Septeml)ei' MO. ISitL His son, J. C. C. Russell, grew 
up and began his education in the pulilic schools, continuing it in 
th.e high school at Oakland, where he was graduated July, 188fi. 
The succeeding two yeai's he spent in farming, then entered the 
University of California, where he was graduated in 1895. Mean- 
\'.hile, in his spare time, he was a student in a law school at San 
Francisco, and such good use of his ojiportunities did he make 
that lie was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Cali- 
fornia, January !*, 18il4. After an English course, in which he 
graduated in 18f)5, he l)egan the practice of his profession in San 
Francisco, where he remained for over two years, and then moved 
to Mariposa, but after a residence of not quite two years there he 
came to Hanford, Sejitember 14, 1897. In 1898 he estalilished him- 
self here in the general jiractice of his profession, which he has 
continued till the i)resent time with much success, winning a high 
place at the liar and an enviable standing in the jiublic rejiute. 

Socially, Mr. Russell alliiiates with the Foresters, the Eagles, 
(he Ancient Order of United Workmen, the Native Sons of the 
(jolden West, the Degi'ee of Honor, the Woodmen of the World 
and the Modern Woodmen of ^Vnierica. On June 1.'!, 1903, he mar- 
ried Gwendolyn Darnell, a daughter of Mrs. Clara E. Myers, and 
they have a daughter, Mercedes. 



CLARK M. SMITH 

Numbered among those brave jiatriots who fought so cour- 
ageously for their country's cause in the Ci\il wai- is Clark M. 
Smith, born May ."), 1847, at Adrian, Mich,, where he grew up, 
attending the public school, lie did i'aiin work until he enlisted 
in Company K, Sixth Michigan Infantry, and was transferred to 
Heavy Artillery, for service in the Federal army. He was en- 
rolled January 4, 1864, and was iionorabl\- discharged August 20, 
18fi5. During his term of service he participated in many historic 
engagements, notably at Mobile Bay, I'ort Morgan and Fort Blake- 
ley. His father was a member of the same company and died on 
the way home after having been discharged. 



710 TULARE AND KIXGS COUNTIES 

Ketnruin.i'- to Mifliigan ;\Ir. Smith remained there, emijloyed 
mostly on the farm, until July 14, lS7o, when he started for Cali- 
fornia. Locating at Ferndale, Humboldt county, he eugaged in 
business, was soon elected constalile and served as a special officer 
four years. Then he engaged in tlie fuiuiture trade, ct)ntinuing 
in it there till 1S89, when he took up his residence in Hanford and 
bought out tiie ohl Ijillie furniture store, but in 1893 the building 
he Occupied was destroyed by lire. It was his intention to resume 
business, but before he could secure other quarters he fell ill and 
was not able to take np the activities of life again until four years 
afterwards. Then he was elected justice of the peace at Hanford, 
and after he had filled the office with much credit four years he 
was, in June, 1903, ap])oiuted to the same office at Armona by the 
board of supervisors of Kings county, and since then the latter 
town has been his home. He is a justice of the peace, a notary 
public and fills the office of secretary of the Grangeville Cemetery 
association, besides doing considerable business in real estate and 
insurance. 

On (Jctober 22, 1890, Mr. Smith was united in marriage with 
Miss Georgia Amner and they are the parents of two children, 
Osmond and Georgia Irene, both of whom have been educated in 
Kings county. Fraternally, he has ])assed the chairs in both the 
Knights of Pythias and the Indeiiendcnt Order of Odd Fellows, 
as well as the encampment. In 189.") Mr. Smith was counuander 
of McPherson post, G.A.R., of which he has been quartermaster 
six years and is in his eleventh year as adjutant. He is also a mem- 
ber of the local organization of the Sons of ^"eterans. As a soldier, 
as a pul)lic official and as a business man and citizen, he has been 
e(iual to everv demand. 



JOSEPH wnjjA:\r sturgeon 

As a farmer and as a Imsiness man, Joseph William Sturgeon 
has achieved distinction in the country round al)out Tulare. Tulare 
county. He is a native son of California, having been born in Ama- 
dor county, October 7, 1855, and was in bis sixth year when, in 
1860, his father, Francis Marion Sturgeon, located near Farmer.s- 
ville, in Tulare county. There the boy was reared and educated 
in the common schools and on his father's ranch instructed in the 
fundamentals of farming and stockgrowing. His original land hold- 
ing was one hundred and sixt\' acres, but he rented and farmed 
other land and grew as a stockraiser until he now has two thou- 
sand acres and handles al)out three hundred head of cattle. Fif- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 71 1 

teen Imndrerl acres of his land is reserved for fanning and is at 
tliis time used for ]»astnre. He owns also eighty acres of alfalfa 
land on the Tulc rivci-. ten miles fi-oni Tulare, which is lieing im- 
]iroved under his i)ersonal direction. Lie lived on his ranch until 
1895, when he removed to Tulare, where he has since made his 
home. Since his retirement from active farm life he has identified 
iiimself with several im])ortant interests and is a stockholder in 
the bank of Tulare. His father, Francis Marion Sturgeon, ranched 
near Earmersville until his acti\ities were terminated by his death. 

In ISSi) Joseph W. Sturgeon married Matilda Evelyn Lathro]), 
and they have three children, Mildred Lee, and "William Tyler and 
Wallace Ezra (twins). The Sturgeon family is well and favorably 
known to members of most of the best families in the county and 
its head is recognized as a citizen of much iniblic spirit, who is 
never backward in assisting any measure which, in liis opinion, 
promises to promote the public weal. 



FRANK SMITH 

This prosperous farmer, merchant and warehouse jn'oprietor at 
Angiola, Tulare county, Cal., was born in Alameda county, Cal., June 
IT), ]8(i2. He attended the ])ublic school near his home until he was 
eighteen years old, meanwhile accpiiring a jiractical knowledge of 
farming on his father's ranch. After he left school he helped with 
the work of the family homestead until he was twenty years of age, 
and then engaged in farming on his own account, and so jjersistently 
has he followed out the well-laid plans of his youth that, while he 
has given attention to some other interests, he has been a farmer 
during all the years of his active life. He is at present engaged 
in ranching and wheat-raising on the lake. Locating at Angiola he 
went into the cattle business and bought and sold stock for eight 
years. In 1908 he engaged in the grain, feed and fuel trade, with a 
warehouse in Angiola, and he has continued in these lines to the 
present time witli good success. He makes a specialty of the breed- 
ing of mules and he was in 1912 the owner of fifty head of as good 
stock of that class as was to be found anywliere in his i)art of the 
country. 

In 188() Mr. Smith married Miss Jennie Morgan, who was born 
in San Francisco, Cnl., in 18()(), and they have eight children: Cleve, 
Grover, Leo, Vieva, Vcia, James, William and Edward. Mr. Smith 
is a man of much public spirit, who has in different ways done nmcli 



712 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

for the welfare for Angiola, for lie has the interest of the com- 
iminity at heart and strives earnestly to promote its develoiJiiient 
and prosperity. 



DR. WILLL\M WHITTINGTON 

Notwithstanding iiis fomi)aratively recent advent at Dinul)a, 
Tulare county, CaL, Dr. William Whittington has established a jiro- 
fessional practice which evidences his skill as a physician. Making 
a specialty of tuberculosis of the lungs, he has achieved a success 
which has been remarked by his brother i)hysicians throughout central 
California. His beautiful home is presided over l)y his wife, who is 
giving Christian training to their children, and he possesses the 
friendshiji of many and esteem of all wJio are so fortunate as to 
have made his acquaintance. Of Northern l)irt]i. but of Southern 
extraction, he unites all those (]ualities of enterjnise and of cultiva- 
tion which make for the very highest American citizenship. Besides, 
he represents honored families of pioneers. Early in the history of 
southern Illinois Josejih Whittington, his revered grandfather, came 
from Tennessee and settled near Benton, Franklin county, where he 
secured a tract of virgin soil on which he farmed the remainder of 
his life. His son J. F. Whittington was born and lived out his days 
near Benton, 111., dying in 1886. His wife was Mary Spencer, a 
native born Tennesseean, and accompanied her parents to Illinois, 
where she still lives in the eomiianionship of some of lier children. 
There were ten in all, of whom Dr. William Whittington was the first 
born, and of whom five are living. 

Doctor Whittington is the only one of the family now living in 
California. He was born near Benton, Franklin county. 111., and 
grew to manhood there on the old family liomestead on which he 
was taught practical farming. Agriculture possessed few attractions 
for him, however, and early in life he turned to school teaching, and 
in his intervals of teaching read medicine under the in-eceptoi'slii]) 
of Dr. C. O. Kelley, of Ewing, 111. In 1878 he became a student at 
the Missouri Medical College, at St. Louis, Mo., where he was grad- 
uated March -t, 1880, with the degree of M. D. He began his practice 
at Ewing, 111., but soon moved to Campbell Hill. Jackson eoimty, that 
state. In 1891 he came to California and o]iened an office at Reedley, 
Fresno county, whence he moved in ISWA to Tulare county. In the 
l)eriod 1898-1900 he was in active practice of his profession in Los 
Angeles and in 1902 located in Dimilia. While a resident of Illinois, 
he was identified with the Southern Illinois ^ledical Association 
which still retains his name on its roll of members. 



TULARE AND KINGS ('(^UNTIES 71:: 

In 187(i J)r. Wliittin.n'toii married Miss Virginia ITaekney, a 
native of Tennessee, their wedding eei'emony having been solemnized 
at Elkville, 111. Her father, E. J. Hackney, was born in Tennessee 
and re])resented long lines of Sonthern ancestry. To Dr. and Mrs. 
Wliittington have i)een born children as follows: Pearl lone is the 
wife of H. Ilamner, of Fresno, C'al.; Frank Edmnnd died in infancy; 
William E., who is a salesman for the San Joaqnin Light & Power 
Co., married Miss Grace Alters; ('harles Roy, who is the proprietor 
of the Dinnba P]lectrical Works, married Miss Grace Nichols; and 
Ray Hackney is a gradnate of the Dinnba high school. Dr. and 
Mrs. Whittington are members of the Methodist Episcopal chnrch of 
Dinuba and liberal contuibntors toward its maintenance and that 
of its numerous charities. He is a Thirty-second degree- Scottish 
Rite Mason and a member of Dinnba lodge, F. & A. M., and is 
identified with the A\'()odmen of the World. As a stockholder and 
director, he is jjrominent in the affairs of the United States Bank of 
Dinuba, the history of which dates from its estal)lishment in 1908. 
He is the owner of a twenty acre orange grove just coming into 
lieariiii!,- in the Smith Mountain countrv. 



HENRY L. WH.S()N 

'i'he family of Wilson of which Henry L. Wilson is the head 
came to Tulare county in January, 1!)0(;, and was the first to domicile 
itself on what is now the site of Alpaugh. Mr. Wilson was born in 
^forgan county. III., March 27. 18fi7. After he was old enough to go 
to school he was a student in the public school until he was nine 
\"ears ol<I, and he devoted the ensuing ele\en years to acquiring a 
knowledge of farming on his father's ranch and incidentally helping 
his father with his work. ]n 18S!). when he was aliout twenty-tM'o 
years old, he began farming for himself in Nebraska, but in li'lll 
renu)ved to Phoenix, Ariz., where he bought land and kept the books 
of a planing-mill concern. He remained there but a short time, how- 
ever, and in !!)()() he was established in Alpaugh as the proprietoi' of 
a blacksniithing and implement business and as a freighter between 
Alpaugh and .\ngiola. In the s|)ring of lf)()7 he was elected manager 
of the local water comj)any, which ])osition he held three years with 
credit to himself and to the satisfaction of all others concerned. For 
some time he has been doing business as a building contractor and 
as a real estate dealei' and ably filling the offices of constable and 
notary public. His latest venture has been in well drilling, and he 
possesses one of the finest well-drilling outfits in central California, 
thus being )»repared to do such work at short notice, if necessity 



714 TULARE AND KINGS ('OUXTfEK 

so demands. His interest in education and in religion lias made 
liim useful in the eonununity as a school trustee and as the organizer 
and chairman of the Christian association, of the bihie class of which 
he is teacher. In a general way he has the progress and prosper- 
ity of the town at heart and is liberal in assistance of all movements 
for the benefit of its i)eoi)le. He is the owner of sixty acres of land 
near Alpaugh. 

Fraternally Mi'. Wilson affiliates with the Indejiendent Order of 
Odd Fellows, Modern Woodmen, the Eoyal Highlanders and the Fra- 
ternal Brotherhood. He married, Xovember 30, 1893, Miss Minnie F. 
Lois, a native of Texas, and is the father of seven children : Chester 
H., Kalph C., Ross L., Earl 0., Fred W., Lloyd E., and Grace L. 



SAMUEL REHOEFER 

One of the pioneer merchants of Hanford, Kings county, Cal., is 
Samuel Eehoefer, a member of the firm of Steele & Rehoefer, exclu- 
sive shoe dealers, his partner being F. J. Steele. Mr. Rehoefer is a 
native of Bavaria. When he was ten years old he came with his 
father's family to the United States and they settled in Kentucky. 
From there he went to Alabama, and thence to Texas, where he 
passed the years of his young manhood in different dry goods estab- 
lishments. In 1878 he came to California, and in the period 1878-82 
he was connected with dry goods enterprises in San Francisco, Dixon 
and Stockton successively. He came to Hanford in 1882 and estab- 
lished the dry goods house of the Kutner-Goldstein Co., of which he 
was part owner and general manager for twenty-three years. The 
first store of the company on Sixth street had a floor space of fifty 
by one hundred feet. This, under Mr. Rehoefer 's progressive man- 
agement, was gradually enlarged from year to year until the store 
was one of the largest and best appointed in the county. In 1903 
he disposed of his dry goods interests and with Mr. Steele as a 
partner opened a shoe store on Seventh street, which has been so 
skillfully managed that it is one of the most conspicuous of the 
prosperous business institutions of the city. Other interests than 
merchandising have to some extent commanded Mr. Rehoefer 's atten- 
tion; he owned at one time an eighty-acre alfalfa ranch in Kings 
county and he is the proprietor of the Palace rooming house block 
on Douty street. In many ways be has demonstrated a public spirit 
which marks him as a useful and helpful (ntizeu. Fraternally he 
affiliates with the Masons, in which he has attained the thirty-second 
degree, and with the Knights of Pythias. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 715 

WILLIAM GEORGE BASSETT 

Elsewhere in these pages appears an interesting biographical 
sketch of Mark Bassott, an Englislmian, who came to Kings conuty 
from Fresno connty in 1895 and has achieved more than state-wide 
re])ntation as a breeder of stock, hogs and poultry. Among his 
children was William George Bassett, who was born in England, 
October 9, 1876, and is successfully farming eighty acres of his 
father's land at Arniona, twenty-five acres being in vines and most 
of the remainder in orchard, his i)rincipal horticultural |iroduets 
being apricots and peaches, lie also gives some attention to farming. 

In the affairs of his community Mr. Bassett is patrioticall\' inter- 
ested and he is now filling the office of deputy sheriff I)y appointment 
of L. D. Parmer and is serving in his second term as trustee in the 
Armona school district. Fraternally he affiliates with the Hanford 
organization of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. 

In May, 190:1, Mr. Bassett married Miss Chloe Pursell, of Han- 
ford, Cal., who has borne him three daughters, who are here named 
in the order of their nativity : Mildred Irene, Wilma Helen and 
Marjorie Ethel. 



MANUEL R. HOMEN 

Conspicuous among Hanford 's men of affairs, and locally prom- 
inent as a Reiniblican, Manuel R. Homen is fraternally popular 
through his identification with the U. P. E. C. and I. D. E. S. He 
is a native of the Azores islands, born December 6, 1855, and lived at 
Pico until 1875, when on becoming of age, he came to the United 
States and stopped in Boston until October of that year. From 
Boston he crossed the continent to San Francisco, and locating at 
Los Banos, Merced county, he worked there five years. He then 
went to Merced and built a hotel which he managed a year and then 
disposed of it. He had been to Hanford with sheeyj in 1881 and had 
become so favorably impressed with its ]Jossibilities that in 1886 he 
returned, intending to make his home here. His first year in the 
town he spent as a hotel keeper, meanwhile making a start in the 
sheep business, in which he has been actively interested to the present 
time. He was in the retail liquor business three and a half years. 
After he had estal)lished himself here he l)uilt his old home on Front 
street, where he lived twelve years, then inoxed to a second home 
in the town, at No. 924 N. Rcdiugton street, where he remained eiglit 
years. He has since sold both houses, and in May, 1910, he bought 
eighty acres of the Ira Rollins ranch, adjoining the south border of 



716 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

tlie c-ity, oil wliidi is one uf the largest liouses in Kings eonnty, which 
serves as liis residence. Dui'iug all this time sheej) raising has been 
his principal interest, hut latterly he has given considerable attention 
to fruit. At one time he owned tive thousand sheep which he says 
he fed at points all over the state. The west side is now the feeding 
grouiKl for his flocks. Thirty-five acres of his homestead is in vines 
and thirty acres is in alfalfa. 

Other interests than those mentioned have to some extent com- 
manded Mr. Homen's attention. He is a stockholder and director 
in the Hanford Mercantile Company and has invested quite exten- 
sively in oil stocks. The economic affairs of the city and county are 
matters of solicitude to him and he responds generously to all 
demands upon his public sjjirit. At Oakland, Cal., in December, 
1890, he married Rita Silva, who like himself was born in the Azores 
and had been reared to maturity at Pico. She has borne him six 
children: Manuel R., Jr., Alice, Adelaide, Arthur, Elvina and William, 
all members of their ])arents' household. 



AY. W. BLOYD 

In Illinois, October 5, 1860, was born AY. AY. Bloyd, a son of 
Washington Bloyd. He was only a baby when his father brought 
him to California and he lived near Goose Lake until he was eight 
.years old, and then his family moved to Marysville, Yuba county. 
In 1873, when the boy was thirteen years old, they came to what is 
now Kings eonnty and located near Hanford, the father taking uji a 
homestead and settling on a hundred and sixty acres of railroad laud, 
to all of which pro])erty he subsequently obtained clear title. Making 
a home farm of it he lived there until his death, which occurred in 
July, 1910. His eight children and his widow all survive him and 
they all live in Hanford. 

It was near Hanford that A\'. AY. Bloyd began fai-ming. and he 
was successful there until 1886, then going to Fresno county, where 
he farmed until 1902, when he bought ten acres near Hanford. ?Ie 
also bought twenty acres adjoining the tirst purchase and diminished 
tlie latter by selling eight acres of it. He improved the place by the 
erection of a house and good barns, and as rapidly as possible ];)ut 
it under cultivation. He has four acres of vines, three and one-half 
acres of apricots and three and one-half acres of peaches, and gives 
attention to the breeding of horses. In June. 1904, he was made 
su])eriutendent of the ditch systems of the Chamlierlain-Carr Com- 
pany, the Guernsey Canal and Lakeside System and the Branch Canal 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 717 

Union Water and Diteli Coniiiany. lie is a diieetor and the secretary 
of the Settlers' Ditch Company. 

In 1882 he married Mary A. Bostwick, and they liave three chil- 
dren: Charles Edward, of Fnllerton; Chester A., wiio lives near Han- 
ford; and Ethel, wiio is a meml)er of her parents' household. Mr. 
Bloyd affiliates with the Woodmen of the World and is a citizen of 
nnqnestionable public spirit. 



MARK BASSETT 

A native of England, Mark Bassett, who lias achieved more than 
state-wide reputation as a breeder of horses, cattle, hog's and ]ioiiltry 
and whose ranch three miles north of Hanford is one of the sbow- 
]daces of tliat ])art of Kings county, was born August 1, 1848. He 
I'emained there until 1880, becoming a farmer, then came to Canada 
and located in Ontario, where he farmed eleven years, until he made 
his way across the continent to California. He came to Kings count}- 
in 1895 from Fresno county and bought one hundred and sixty acres 
of land two miles north of Ilanford, one hundred and sixty acres 
four miles north, and eighty acres at Armona. His one hundred and 
sixty-acre homestead has one hundred acres in orchard and vineyard ; 
the other one hundred and sixty acres is in alfalfa except forty acres 
which is given to fruit; and his eighty acres at Armona is devoted 
to the cultivation of fruits and grapes. He has a total of eighty 
acres in vineyard and one hundred and twenty aci-es in ai)ricots and 
peaches. Soon after he came to the county he began raising thor- 
ough-bred Poland-China hogs. He im])orted his original stock and 
now has forty registered sows. During the past six years he exhib- 
ited hogs at various state fairs and it is of record that he took first 
prize at the Seattle P]x])osition in ]!>()!). His hogs and chickens have 
taken himdreds of first prizes at fairs and exhibitions in Oregon. 
Washington and California, and are known for their excellence 
throughout the entire coast country. He also makes a specialty of 
Percheron horses and is the owner of a thoroughbred stallion and 
owns a share in another. His chickens are barred Plymouth Rocks 
and lilack Minorcas. His land is all well improved and his home is 
one of the most attractive in this vicinity. 

From time to time Mr. Bassett has \ery public s|)irit('dly inter- 
ested himself in mimerous enterprises. He is a stockholder in the 
Lucerne Creamery, in the Armona P''ruit and Raisin Packing Co. and 
in the Farmers and Merchants' Bank of Hanford, and is a member 
of the Kings Comity Chamber of Connnerce. 

In October, 1872, Mr. Bassett married Miss Helena Lander, a 



718 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

member of old English families, wlio has borne him twelve children, 
ten of whom are living : Helen, wife of J. Malott ; Mabel, who married 
Frank Pursell ; William George ; Mark, Jr. ; John ; Bertha, wife of 
John Day; Edith, who married Louis Nieson; Ernest; Guy, and 
Archie. 



MELVIN A. HILL 

A native of Indiana, l)orn in La Grange county on March 14, 
1844, Melvin A. Hill is a sou of the late William Remington and 
Sarah (Gregg) Hill, natives of Monroe county, N. Y., and South 
Carolina respectively. The former was born in 1815, went to Indiana 
at an early day and grew up with the pioneer life of that period. He 
married in that state about 1841, and remained there uutil September 
10, 1859, when with his wife and seven children he started across the 
plains with ox-teams aud prairie schooners. Arriving in this state 
he settled down to the life of a rancher, following this uutil his deatli 
here, with the exception of a short time spent in Oregon, where he 
went to join his son Melvin A. 

Melvin A. Hill attended school until he was fifteen aud remained 
in California with his parents until 1864, when he went to Oregon. 
Soon after he returned to this state, and in 1874 we find him in 
Tulare county after having lived and labored for a time in Ventura 
county. Farming has been his occupation ever since reaching man- 
hood. When he came to this part of the state Kings county had not 
been set apart from the mother county of Tulare and all trading 
was done in Visalia for many years. He bought one hundred and 
sixty acres of land on the Hanford-Tulare road, began its imju'ove- 
meut aud assisted to build the Lakeside ditch to supply the water 
for irrigation. All the improvements seen on his ranch have been 
placed there by himself and he has carried on general farming and 
stock raising with increasing success all these years. There is 
probably no man better informed than is Mr. Hill on the successful 
production and sale of crops and stock, and it would be impossible 
for any one to give himself more devotedly to his business or to have 
brought an enterprise to a higher ])lane of success. 

In Santa Barbara, Cal., on September 1, 1872, occurred the mar- 
riage of Melvin A. Hill with Cynthia Reuk, a native of Adams 
county, 111., and two children were born to them, Henry, who is faruv 
ing on eighty acres given him by his father, aud Cora, wlio died in 
infancy. Mrs. Hill passed away in Septeudier. 1909, aud on Septem- 
ber 15. 1912, Mr. Hill was uuited in marriage with Mrs. Mary Ball. 
Mr. Hill has not taken an active intei-est in politics otiier than 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 719 

to cast his vote for the men aud measures that he considers for the 
greatest good to the greatest numlier. He is interested in the cause 
of education aud served as trustee of the Frazer district for two 
years. He is patriotically interested in economic questions local and 
national, advocated the organization of Kings county, and assists 
all worthy enterprises for the advancement of the interests of the 
people and countj*. His success has been of his own making and he 
is looked upon as one of the substantial pioneers of the county, and 
has a wide acquaintance in this section of the state. 



GEORGE W. HOUSTON 

A breeder of cattle, horses aud hogs in the district of Kings 
county, Cal., southwest of Hanford, who has won prominence by his 
excellent stock and good business ability is G. W. Houston. Born near 
Bloomington, Monroe county, Ind., August 11, 1853, Mr. Houston 
passed his early life there, learning farming and studying in the 
public schools. He was married in 1877 and some time later went 
to Kansas, where he lived about three years, and in 1889 he came to 
California, locating in what is now Kings county. His first year 
here was spent in operating the George Camp ranch near Armona, 
and the following year he was on the Ernest Rollins ranch. His 
next venture was to lease two hundred and forty acres for five years, 
on which property he put in ten acres of vineyard and twelve acres 
of orchard. His first ]iurchase of land was in 1904, when he bought 
eighty acres which he has developed into a fine ranch. When it came 
into his possession part of it was devoted to vineyard and some of 
the rest of it to orchard, lie has put out eleven acres of it to vines 
and taken up the old orchard aud has forty acres under alfalfa. Ail 
the improvements on the place are due to the enterprise of Mr. 
Houston, who has used the best judgment in the selection of trees and 
vines. Cattle, horses and hogs are among his chief products. They 
are of the best breed and bring the best prices in the market. 

On December 26, 1877, Mr. Houston married Miss Minerva A. 
Morris, a native of Indiana, and a daughter of Hiram and Rebecca 
Morris, and it was in the lioosier state that their wedding was cele- 
bi-ated. Mrs. Houston has borne her husband four sons and two 
daughters, Ernest W. and Everett R., born in Indiana; Grace S. in 
Kansas ; and Oscar C, Howard G. and Blanche in California. 

Everett R. and Ernest W. are in the real estate business at Han- 
ford. Grace S. is the wife of Clau<le C. Overstreet and lives in 
Lemoore. Oscar C. is a menibei' of his parents' household. Howard 
G. is in the Coalinga oil field and Blanche is a student in Ihe high 



7i'(» TULARE AXD KTXGS COIXTIKS 

school at Lemoore. Wiiile Mr. Houston is a lovt-i- of lioinc and coulines 
himself very closely to his own private business, he is intelligently 
interested in iiublic questions and is glad, whenever i)ossihle. to do 
his utmost for the good of his community. 



r. G. HASTINGS 

Two and a half miles northeast of Lindsay, Tulare county, C'al.. 
is located the productive ranch of U. G. Hastings, a farmer and 
orange grower, who is well known throughout the community as a 
])rogressive, enterprising business man. Mr. Hastings was born in 
Contra Costa county in 1868 and was only four years old when his 
parents moved to Tulare county and settled near Wooilville. Lyman 
H. Hastings, his father, a native of Ohio, came to California in 1S50 
and died in 1874. His mother, a daughter of Missouri, is still living. 

After he was old enough to go to school, Mr. Hastings devoted 
his years until he was. sixteen to his educational advancement in 
preparation for the life of endeavor which was before him. Li liis 
seventeenth year, he became self-supporting and was variously 
emi)loyed until 1892, when he began farming for himself. In ISiKi 
he bought one hundred and sixty acres of land at $6 an acre and 
devoted his energies with consideralile success to the cultivation of 
wheat and barley. In li'OO he made a purchase of eighty acres and 
in 1909 one of twenty acres more. He is now giving his attention 
almost exclusively to oranges and grain. His ranch is well improved 
and outfitted with every essential to its successful cultivation. 

In 1904 Mr. Hastings married Miss Agnes Limegrover, of tiiis 
county, who has borne him a daughter. Norma A. Mrs. Hastings' 
father has passed away, but her mother survives. It cannot be said 
that Mr. Hastings has been a lifelong resident of California. It is 
true that he was born here and lives here now, but in 1898 he entered 
upon a four years' gold cjuest in Alaska, in which he was successful. 
During this time however Mr. Hastings returned to California in 
1902 and the next year made a second trip to xVlaska, locating a claim 
in the Fairbanks camp, but he returned to California in the same 
year and was married in San Francisco in 1904. He then went back 
to his mining claim in Alaska, taking his Itride with him, and they 
remained there until 1911, he meeting with marked success in his 
mining ventures. Their little girl. Norma A., was the first white child 
born on Clear Creek in the Tanana district, Alaska. Fraternally he 
affiliates with the "Woodmen of the World. Having no active ]iar- 
tici])ation in political work he is, however, intelligently interested in 
every question affecting the welfare of the people and does his full 
duty as a voter and a imblic-spirited citizen. 



TULAEE AND KINdS COUNTIES 7l'1 

JUDSON ANDREW DIBBLE 

The progressive aud tliorou,s>lily nji-to-date fanner and stockman 
wlio lias won an enviable rejintation among his fellow citizens, is 
Judsou Andrew Dibble, a native sou of this state, having been born 
at Santa Crnz, ("al., October 12, 1869. He was four years old when 
his jiareuts moved from Santa Cruz to Tulare county and settled in 
the Lakeside district. There he attended school until he was sixteen 
years old, and after the completion of his studies he was busy until 
he was twenty-one years old in assisting his father in the latter 's 
agricultural operations. The time had now come when he was to 
assume responsibilities for himself, and he went into stock-raising 
and farming and achieved success almost from the outset. In 1895 
he acquired one hundred and sixty acres of good land which he has 
develojjed into a tine homestead, fitted up with suitable buildings of 
all kinds, including a comfortable residence, the farm being well 
stocked and provided with modern machinery and ap]>liances such as 
are demanded in scientific farming in California. 

Politically Mr. Dibble is a Republican, proud of the history of his 
party and devoted to the measures by which it ]ilans to ])romote the 
best interests of our citizens of all classes. He faithfully performs 
his duties as a citizen and so far is he from having been an office 
seeker that he has declined such ])nblic preferment as he has been 
urged to accept. Ilis interests in education impelled him, however, 
to assume the duties of trustee of the Lakeside schools, and in that 
caiiacity he was elificient in raising the educational standard in his 
neighborhood. 

May 24, 1893, Mr. Dibble married Miss Lulu Skaggs, who was 
born in Tulare county. April 5, 1875. They have three children, Ella 
A., Alta E. and Nora L. 



FRANK POE 

From the ])osition of an humble employe in the Farmers' Union 
Warehouse at Tulare, Frank Poe, through diligence and painstaking 
effort, rose after five yeafs' service to his ])resent ]ilace as manager. 
He is a native of Minnesota and was born August 5, 1868. a son of 
Hiram B. and Eliza Poe. Reared and educated in Minnesota he 
came to California with his parents when he was eighteen years old. 
After having devoted his energies to farming for many years, the 
elder Poe in 1907 sold out his ranch interests and moved to Tulare, 
where he died in July, 1911, his wife having i)asscd away two years 
earlier. 

41 



722 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIP^S 

From the time of bis arrival in Tulare county until the begin- 
ning of his connection with the warehouse Frank Poe was variously 
employed, and after five years' faithful service he was made man- 
ager, this being seven years ago, and since has ably filled tlie position. 
The Farmers' Union Warehouse Company has a history of success 
dating from 1885, when it was organized at Tulare by outside capital. 

By his marriage with Miss Phoelie Garrison Mr. Poe united his 
life with that of a good woman who has proven herself a most worthy 
helpmeet. Fraternally he affiliates with the Fraternal Order of 
Eagles, the Independent Order of Red Men and the Woodmen of the 
World, all of which orders have representative bodies in Tulare. As 
manager of the Farmers' Union Warehouse, Mr. Poe is in close touch 
with the business community of Tulare and its tributary territory, 
and as a business man and citizen he has demonstrated a public spirit 
which has made him helpful to all local interests. 



CHARLES FISHER 

Philadelphia, Pa., was the scene of the birth of Charles Fisher, 
now of Tulare county. Cal., April 15, 1853. When he was three years 
old his family moved to Missouri, and there were passed the years 
of his boyhood and young manhood. It was not till 188fi, when he 
was thirty-three years old, that lie turned his back on Missouri with 
an intention of making a home elsewhere. Then he came to Cali- 
fornia, and locating near Cottonwood creek, Tulare county, farmed 
there for a year. Next we find him on the Robert March ranch, 
where he i-emained two years. The succeeding nine years he spent 
on the John A. Patterson ranch. On his present home place, south- 
west of Visalia, he has lived fourteen years. He rents the rancli, 
which consists of two hundred acres. Thirty-five acres he devotes to 
alfalfa, fifteen acres to {)runes and peaches and seven acres to raisin 
gravies. He has also a fine dairy of seven cows. He has sold as 
much as $11)00 worth of fruit off the ranch in a single season. He 
has made a study of fruit-growing, to which he has given twenty 
years, and has not hesitated to experiment ; some of his ex]>eri- 
ments have turned out well. At this time he has six acres jilanted 
to Egyptian corn. In the early days of his residence in California, 
he hauled grain from Lindsay. Then that ]iart of the county was a 
wheatiield and land could be bought at $5 an acre which now com- 
m.ands a high i)rice. 

In 1879 Mr. Fisher married Jane Kirkman, a native of Missouri, 
and they liave six children: Agnes, Jacob C., James F., Anna May, 
Deva E. and Harlev M. While he takes an intelligent interest in all 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 723 

matters of public moiiient, Mr. Fisher has little likinii' for the aetiv- 
ities which are iiopularly known as practical politics. He is, essen- 
tially, a business man and by choice devotes his abilities to farniing 
and fruit-growing. In many ways he has demonstrated a public 
spirit which has been helpful to the community. 



J. A. HANNAH 

While the American joeople present to view aliout the most het- 
erogeneous conglomeration of humanity ever known in history, it is 
true that the population has long been made up mainly of descendants 
of emigrants from the British Isles. Canada is a distributing- 
station for much British immigration to the United States, and in 
our industries, from the railroad l)uilder to the bank president, the 
men from Canada have shown excellent qualities and their offspring 
have not only been successful, but in most instances have been 
exceedingly prosperous. J. A. Hannah, lawyer, with office in the 
Harrell building, Visalia, Tulare county, comes of old families well 
known in the history of the mother country and its colonies and is a 
native of New Brunswick. He was educated in Canada and at the 
Harvard Law School, which he entered in 1876 and from which he 
was graduated in 1878. He practiced his profession in Nevada until 
1888, when he located at Visalia, where he has since lived, gaining 
distinction at the bar. He is the owner of twenty-six hundred acres 
of valuable ranch land near Strathmore, Tulare county, on which he 
grows vines and alfalfa and has bred many tine cattle. 

In 1899 Mr. Hannah married Miss Kate Miller, a native of Cali- 
fornia, and they have daughters, Margaret and Dorothy. F^raternally 
he affiliates with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and as 
a citizen he is helpfully public-spirited and not without recognized 
political influence. 



JOHN MITCHELL GLASGOW 

A native of the Emerald Isle, John Mitche'l Glasgow was born 
near Belfast, Sei)tember 20, 18(54. He lived in Ireland until he was 
seventeen years old, accpiiiing a primary education and receiving 
some training in useful work. Then he crossed the ocean to the 
United States and located at Auburn, N. Y., where he was employed 
in the delivery of milk for a daii'y. In 1887 he came to California 
on his wedding trip and settled in Tulare countv. His first few 



7-24 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

years here were busy oues. He farmed the old Teruian ranch on 
shares, raised cattle in a small way and cut and hauled wood. Thus, 
and otherwise at times, he was employed until he bought his home- 
stead of nine acres, which was the nucleus of his j)resent one hundred 
and eleven acre farm, which includes several subsequent purchases. 
He has a dairy of twenty cows, six acres planted to Egyptian corn, 
and four acres in prunes and peaches. His land produces a ton and 
a half of alfalfa to the acre and he sold during the season of 1912 
eighteen tons of prunes from three acres for $450. 

In 1887 Mr. Glasgow married Maggie Henry, a native of New 
York, and they have four childreu: Harry H., Ina B.. Iva M. and 
Lena. Ina B. is attending business college in Stockton. In all 
things pertaining to the advancement of the best interests of his 
community, Mr. Glasgow is jiatriotically interested, and there is no 
measure that in his opinion promises to benefit any considerable 
number of his fellow-citizens that does not receive his encouragement 
and support. He is a member of the Loyal Order of ^loose, devoted 
to its various interests and respected by its brotherhood. His suc- 
cess is but another demonstration of the fact that grit aud hard work 
will win in the game of life if intelligently applied to everyday prob- 
lems and persisted in until the hoped-for end is gained. What he 
has done and is doing other Irish-Americans have accomplished aud 
are accom]5lishing, and they are proving the claim that has been made 
for them by many observers that they constitute one of the really 
admirable elements in our foreign-born citizenship. 



ARTHUR BURTON 

Scions of the old New England stock do well in California, aud 
California is justly proud of many of them. They have helped make 
history from coast to coast. Of such ancestry is Arthur Burton, a 
native of Lee coimty, Iowa, born October 7, 1866. His ]iarents were 
Edward and Mary J. (Wren) Burton, his father a native born 
Vernionter aud his mother a product of Illinois. Edward Burton 
left Vermont in the early '40s and crossed the country with an ox- 
team to Chicago, then little more than a big country village, sitting 
low down in the mud and scarcely alive to the prospect of things to 
come. He farmed in Iowa until 1885, and then came to California. 
Having brought some money with him, he was able to buy a ranch 
near Visalia, Tiilare county, which comprised seventy acres, on which 
he raised stock and alfalfa. He lived on that place until March 4, 
1912, when he passed away, aged seventy-seven years, active to the 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 



IS.) 



end. His (.-liildrt'ii are Mrs. Edith AVestou, and Arthur, whose name 
introduces this article. 

In tlie conduct of the paternal farm Arthur Burton helped his 
father until 1903, when he bought his present ranch home, four and 
one-half miles west of Visalia. He owns sixty acres which he de- 
velojied from its original condition. His homestead {proper he devotes 
to the production of alfalfa. In connection with liis own place Mr. 
Burton is conducting the home ranch. 

On December 7, 1894, Mr. Burton married Ethel Wilcox, a native 
of Illinois, who has borne him two sons, Hollis H. and Carroll E. He 
is a member of Four Creek lodge No. 94, I. O. O. F., and affiliates 
with the Fraternal Brotherhood. 



LE^"Y NEWTON GREGORY 

The California citizen of the Dinuba neighborhood, whose career 
has been most worthy as a soldier, a pioneer and a successful man 
of affairs, is Levy Newton Gregory, who was born in Carroll county, 
Tenn., February 6, 1843. When four years old he was taken by his 
parents to Cedar county, Mo., from which place the family moved 
two years later to Springfield, Mo., where the son was educated in 
the public schools. Here he learned his first lessons in farming and 
nmde his home until 1870. Meanwhile, in 1862, when he was nineteen 
years old, he enlisted in Company I, Second Missouri Light Artillery, 
under Ca]5t. S. H. Julean. A year and a half intervened between 
the date of his mustering-in and the date of his musteriug-out. It 
was a time of hardship, of nnicli rough service and ]ioor livi'ng, 
which, however, is not the least jileasant of Mr. Gregory's recol- 
lections of the past. 

When Mr. Gregory came to California it was as a poor man and 
it was not until ]8!)1 that he was able to buy land. He remained 
on his first purchase until ten years ago, when he came to Dinuba 
and bought twenty-five acres of land at $40 an acre, which because 
of his lal)or and the rise in property values in Central California is 
now well worth $600 an acre. 

In 1870 Mr. Gregory married Sarah J. Hill, a native of Missouri. 
Of their seven chikh-en three are living. George was born in Mis- 
souri and died in California. James G. married Nettie Patterson and 
is living in Tulare county. AVilliam A. married Maud Fairweather 
and he, too, lives in Tulare county. Fred A. was born in Oregon, Mo., 
and died, aged twenty-six years, leaving a widow and one child. Bert 
Wiley, who is a well known ranchman in Tulare county, is the only 
one living of triplets. 



726 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIP]S 

AJr. (iiejiory is an Odd Fellow and a uienxber of the Ancient 
Order of United Workmen. Through his fraternal relations, no more 
than by his social intercourse with his fellow citizens he is popular, 
with all who know him. In every relation of life he has proven him- 
self generously helpful and his public spirit, many times tried, has 
never been inadequate to any legitimate demand upon it. His father, 
Wiley B. Gregory, a native of Tennessee, died in Texas at the 
advanced age of eighty-nine years. His mother passed away in 
Missouri. Mrs. Gregory's parents died in Missouri, where her father, 
Lawson Hill, was in some wavs well known. 



EDWARD ERLANGER 

The well known attorney and counsellor at law and breeder of trot- 
ting horses whose name heads this article was born at the University 
of Marburg, Germany, June 15, 1852. He came from a family of 
bankers. His father, Moritz P]rlanger, was a banker and merchant 
at Marburg. Our subject was educated at Gymnasium at Marburg. 
When seventeen years of age he entered the em])loy of the banking 
firm of von Erlanger & Son at Frankfurt on Main and continued till 
1870. when lie was forced to resign his jiosition owing to the fact 
that he was drafted into the military service in the French and 
German war. He did service in the amlnilance corps, after which 
he sailed foi- New York, where he ai-rived in October, 1870. He 
came to California in 1871 and in 1872 located at Kingston, where he 
was employed as liookkeeper in the store of Jacol) and Einstein until 
the spring of 1877. It was while thus employed in the year 1874 
that he and thirty-seven other white men were held up, bound and 
robbed by that historic California bandit Tiburcio ^^ascjuez and his 
band of thirteen outlaws. They were plundered to the extent of 
$4,000.00 and Vasquez and his men made their escape, but were later, 
in 1874, apprehended and arrested by officials from Los Angeles 
county and were hung in 1875. Upon the completion of the railroad 
to Hanford and Lemoore he came to the new town of Lemoore, where 
for two years he was a bookkeeper for J. J. Mack & Company, 
general merchants. Meanwhile he built the hotel and Masonic and 
Odd Fellows' hall building, and he established a general notion store 
in the building, which he was conducting wlien it was burned. He 
resumed Ijusiness in Erlanger Hall, in which a store was operated 
in front and a dance hall in the rear, but sold out in 1884 and took 
up the study of law in the office of Judge Jacobs, with which he was 
connected until 1893, when the latter was elected judge of the 
Superior Court and moved to Hanford, since when Mr. Erlanger has 



TULARK AND KINGS COUNTIES 7_'7 

comlm-ted a general law, notary, real estate, and insurance oltice. 
For a time he handled real estate in association with Otto Brandt. 
Always a lover of horses he engaged in ranching and stockrai sing, 
giving particular attention to trotters. Ills real estate interests 
broadened into the buying, improving and selling large tracts of 
land. His health failed, however, and in 1893-95 he lost most of his 
holdings. It will he remembered that that was a period of iinancial 
depression. But he kei)t to his horses, was made a notary iiublic 
and had a fairly good law i)ractice, and for two years was dei)uty 
assessor under G. W. Follette. In 1895 he branched out as a farmer 
and stock-raiser and bought considerable property in and around 
Leraoore. As an outcome of his enter])rise he raised Toggles, trot- 
ting gelding, which for three years was the fastest horse in its class, 
taking all records in the state. In 1898 at Los Angeles he trotted the 
three fastest heats ever trotted in the West. Toggles was sold in 1898 to 
Mr. Babcock, owner of the Coronado Beach Hotel, and in 1899 won all 
stakes in the state, and in 1900 was taken East and there won three $10,- 
000 stakes and the chamiuonshi]) of his class, and $25,000 was refused 
for him that year. He took also the premium at a horse show as the 
7iiost i)erfect trotter as a show horse in the state. It is interesting 
in this connection to note that Mr. Krianger sold this valualile animal 
for $2500. In 1901 Toggles was retired from the track l)y his owner. 
Mr* Erlanger has his dam and two full brothei-s of him. J^e has 
always bred standardbred horses. In 1891 he started by buying 
twenty-six standard-lired brood mares, which were the foundation of 
his successes. He calls his brood estal)lishment the Royal Rose 
Breeding Farm. The sire Royal Rose was a finely bred trotting 
animal. Mr. Erlanger has at present a large number of horses for 
breeding and is developing Lightening Bug, a full brother of Toggles, 
which made 2:22 in 1911. He is now devoting himself principally to 
his legal and real estate work. In 1906 he was elected justice of the 
peace for four years and is also filling the office of city recoi'der. He 
has subdivided and sold ofT several tracts of land and was the builder 
of the first Masonic and Odd Fellows' hall in Lemoore. Politically 
he affiliates with the Rejniblican party and as a member of the County 
Central conuuittee and otherwise he has been a leader in its local 
work. 

Personally Mr. Erlanger has a generous heart, a loving and 
cheerful dis])osition, and makes and holds many friends. He sur- 
rounds himself with many pets, horses, dogs and birds. One of his 
best iiets is a native California l)ald eagle named "Old Abe." a bird 
which lias won national distinction. In the year 190fi an agent of the 
United States Government from the Smithsonian Institute at Wash- 
ington came to Lemoore, looking uj) data iiei'taiTiing to the Indians 
of this region and other things of interest, lie soon discovered in 



728 TrLAEE AND KIXGS COUNTIES 

"Old Abe" a perfect type of tlie bald eagle, and bad bis pbotograpb 
taken, and tbis pbotograpb it is believed is tbe original for the eagle 
engraved on tbe new five and ten dollar gold coins. 



DA\aD WAED DE MASTERS 

A pioneer of iiioneers, Marshall Foster De Masters, a native of 
Missouri, crossed tbe plains, ■witb ox-teams to California in 1849, tbe 
memorable gold-seeking period tliat will be ever memorable in tbe 
bistory of this state and of tbe country at large. He settled in 
Tulare county, on tbe old Rusb place, northwest of Visalia. Later 
be sold out there and moved to tbe Kibler farm, where he was a 
successful breeder of cattle, sheep and hogs to tbe time of his death, 
which occurred in 1861. In bis time he was prominent in connection 
with tbe important affairs of his ado]ited county. In the days of 
tbe Indian wars be was captain of a local company that was jiitted 
against tbe savages in defense of tbe settlements round about. 

In Tulare county. October 16, 1855, was born David W. De 
Masters, son of Marshall Foster the pioneer. His has been, for tbe 
most part, tbe life of the cowboy, though he has at times acted as 
g-uide in tbe mountains of California. In all parts of the country be 
has driven cattle. At one time he drove a band of sixteen hundred 
cattle across country to Paso Robles for C. W. Clark, and in 1869 
he crossed tbe Sierra NeA^ada mountains with a band of three hundred 
and drove it all the way to S]iring Valley, Nevada, a triji wliicli 
consumed five months and thirteen days. He enjoys tbe distinction 
of being one of tlie few cowboys yet living who ran cattle through 
central California in tbe early days. For tbe last thirteen years be 
has been su]ierintendent of tbe Persian irrigation ditch in Tulare 
county, one of tbe oldest water systems in tbis part of the state. 
In the sunnuer months be is much in demand as a guide to travelers 
and tourists through tbe mountain ranges. 

In August, 1878. Mr. De Masters married Miss Mav Lloyd, a 
native of California. He and bis wife are members of the Inde- 
pendent Order of Foresters. They bad two sons : Remmert died in 
March, 190.3, at tbe age of twenty-four years ; and Harry passed away 
Auo-ust 2, 1889, aged four years. 

Tbe experience of tbe De Masters family in California covers all 
periods of its history since the discovery of gold. In the early days 
of tbe elder De Masters tbe settlers had to grind their own flour 
and drive overland from Tulare county to Stockton for j^rovisions. 
Flour sold at Stockton at .$50 a sack, and other provisions were 
proportionately high. Marshall Foster De Masters married Miss 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 729 

Amelia Ridgeway. Of their children only three survive, Newton and 
Stephen D., of Fresno county, and David W. De Masters of Tulare 
coimty. 

Mr. Lloyd, father of Mrs. David W. De Masters, came to Cali- 
fornia across the plains in 1850 and now at the age of eighty-five 
years is hale and hearty. His wife, Eleanor Coker, like her husband 
a native of Little Rock, Ark., is aged seventy-nine years. They have 
three daughters and one son living, all natives of California. Mr. 
and Mrs. Llovd were married at Rough and Readv, Nevada eountv, 
Cal. 



S. D. COCHRAN 

Of old Southern families, but of Irish and Scotch-Irish extrac- 
tion. S. D. Cochran of Dinuba, Tulare county, Cal., was born in 
Logan county, Ky., and lived there until he was forty-five years old. 
He is a great-grandson of Andrew Cochran, who emigrated from 
County Down, Ireland, when his son Andrew, grandfather of S. D., 
was a child of seven years. This was in 1776 and in that year they 
settled in South Carolina, where the elder Andrew passed away. The 
surviving family then removed to Kentucky, settling in Logan 
county in 1804, and it was in Kentucky in 1865 that the grandfather, 
Andrew Cochran, passed away aged about ninety-seven years. The 
maternal great-grandfather of S. D. Cochran, John Beatty, lived to 
be ninety years old and died in Kentucky in 1809 ; his daughter 
married Andrew Cochran, and was of Scotch-Irish ancestry. John 
B. Cochran, father of S. D., was born in South Carolina and married 
Mary Sawyer, daughter of Squire David Sawyer, of English descent, 
who emigrated from Pennsylvania to Kentucky in the early years 
of the nineteenth century. Mr. Cochran passed away when his son 
S. D. was twenty-two years old and the latter took charge of the old 
homestead. 

S. D. Cochran was educated in the public schools near his boy- 
hood home, but from an early age gave his attention to farming. In 
187;^ he married Harriet Pierce Coles, who was born in Wilson county, 
Tenn., on the bank of the Cumberland river, daughter of John Temple 
and Amanda K. (Bandy) Coles, both natives of Tennessee. Mrs. 
Cochran is a member of a most distinguished family, characterized 
for great virility and longevity. Her great-grandmother (her 
father's paternal grandmother), was a Walters and a native of 
Tennessee and lived to lie ninety-six years of age. Mi's. Cochran 
had six uncles in the Confederate army. It is of interest to remark 
that her parents had a family of twelve children, all of whom are 



730 Trr.ARE AND KL\GS COUNTIES 

Imno'. Jolm 'I'l'iiiple Coles. Iier father, is descended from old Irisli 
families. 

Twelve children were horn to S. D. Cochrnn and his wife as 
follows: ,lohu Cowan was drowned in infancy. TJohert Cleland mar- 
ried Edith Johnson, is a citizen of AVatsonville, Santa Cruz county. 
Cal., and has three children. Temple Beatty married Emma Clapp, 
has three children and they are living in Tulare county. Eureka was 
born November 12, 1878, in Kentucky on the date of the anniversary 
of her brother John Cowan's death, and she died at her home in 
the year 1910 from burns received from an explosion. Elbert, 
assistant postmaster at Dinuba, Cal., nuirried Emma Orrison of 
Selma, Cal., and they have one child, a son. Eunice married P. V. 
Carlson of Berkeley, Cal., and they have two children. Mansou M. 
is postmaster at Dinuba, Cal., has been in the government service 
for the past five years; he married Miimie Wiley, daughter of Assem- 
blyman Wiley, and they have one child, a sou. Euvie married Roy 
W. Wiley, a son of Assemblyman Wiley and they had one child, a 
daughter, and live at Dinuba. S. D., .Ji-., is a farmer and resides 
with his parents. Earl P. is a student at the University of Berkeley, 
and is taking a i)reparatory course to enter the Presbyterian min- 
istry; he has held an important government position. Eulalia and 
Willard arc members of their parents' household, the former a senior 
in the high school, the latter in the grammar school at Dinuba. 

When ]\rr. Cochran came to Tulare count \- in 1892 much of the 
best land, as then im]n'ovod, could have been Ixuight at $100 an acre, 
a small fraction of its market value at this time. In the school at 
Dinuba only two teachers were employed; the number at this time 
is about twelve. In the advancement of education and of all other 
local interests he has been a recognized factor. While residing in 
Kentucky he was twice elected to the office of justice of the peace, 
which office he resigned to come to California, in 1892. He is an 
elder in the Presbyterian church and a member of the Grange at 
Dinuba and he and Mrs. Cochran are charter members of the local 
bodv of the Fi'aternal Brotherhood. 



REV. J. R. COOPER 

On a farm in Perry county. III, rtfty-tive miles from St. Louis, 
was born J. R. Cooper. He was graduated from Monmouth College 
in 1877 and eventually entered the ministry of the Presbyterian 
church and now lives near Dinuba, Tulare county, Cal., on rural free 
delivery route No. 2. His parents were Hugh and Eliza (Despar) 
Cooper, natives respectively of South Carolina and of Kentucky, and 



TULARE AND KL\(}S COUNTIES 731 

he was reared to laaiiliood amid tlie healthful .surroundings of an 
Illinois farm. His great-grandfather was a soldier in the Revolu- 
tionary war. Mr. Cooi)er began his ministry at Solomon, Kansas, 
and labored there five years; his next pastorate, one of four years, 
was at Lake City, Colorado, eight thousand six hundred (8600) feet 
above the sea level. Then he was stationed iiriefly in Nebraska ; 
then, for three years, at Aztec, San Juan county. New Mexico. Next 
he labored a year near the Mexican border, with head(|uarters at 
Douglas, Arizona. From this last station he came to Tulare county 
and bought forty acres of land. He has thirty acres in vines and 
six acres planted to trees and grows six acres of Grand Duke and 
Hungarian plums which bring a higli ])rice in the market. He has 
]ilanted five acres to Rosaki grajies for shipping puriwses and has 
installed a ]>umping plant with a four horse-power Holliday engine, 
by means of which he raises watei- from a depth of seventy-five feet 
for irrigation and domestic ])urposes, in such volume that one hun- 
dred and fifty gallons a minute may l)e discharged. Mr. Coojier's 
many friends are glad to be able to testify that he is making a distinct 
success of his venture in central California. 

The lady who became Mi's. Cooper is of Scotch ancestry and was 
born at Ballymena, Ireland. They have a daughter, Jessie E.. who 
was graduated from the Dinuba high school and has been tea<'hiug 
five years. The mother, who was Margaret (McPherson) Steel, 
came comparatively young to the United States, was educated at the 
St. Louis Normal school and for some time was a teacher at a yearly 
salary of $1000. Her nephews, Mathew and Richard Steel, graduates 
of the University of New York and Edinburg (Scotland) University 
res]3ectively, have won prominence, the one as a professor of chem- 
istry, the other as a physician in the Indian sei-vice. Mr. Coo)>er is 
a Republican and a citizen of notable public spirit. 



THE FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF VISALIA 

This important financial institution occupies its own beautiful 
and substantial banking house at Main and Court streets, Visalia, 
where it has every requisite for the conduct of its large and growing- 
volume of business. This liank was organized and began business in 
181>o. It is capitalized at $l.j(J,()UO, fully paid in, and has a surj)lus 
of more than $40,000. In 1907 its increasing business demanded more 
commodious quarters, and the present fine bank building was erected. 
Its premises are spacious, conveniently arranged and well lighted, 
and its atmosphere is one of solidity and comfoit. They ai-e well 
equipped for the prom]it handling of the bank's extensive business. 



732 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

and their facilities are at the disposal of frieuds and patrons, who 
are cordially invited to raake use of them. 

Included in the list of the officers and directors of the First 
National Bank of Yisalia are the names of some of the hest known 
financiers and men of affairs of the entire state, men of large capital, 
interests and influence, who are personally known to the husiness 
community for their individual integrity and for their ability as 
advisers in all matters in which considerable sums are involved or 
in which the welfare of the i>eople at large is at stake. The officers 
are S. Mitchell, president; A. Levis, A'ice-president ; C. M. Griffith, 
cashier; C. E. Coughran, assistant cashier. The directors are S. 
Mitchell, A. Levis, N. 0. Bradley, W. E. Spalding, D. G. Overall, W. 
L. Fisher and C. M. Griffith. These men individually have done 
much for the advancement of A^isalia and Tulare county. Mr. 
Mitchell, the president, is one of the best and most widely known of 
western financiers, and besides his heavy financial interest in this 
bank has large investments in other important business and monetary 
institutions. He is president of the Pioneer Bank of Porterville, the 
First National Bank and the Lindsay Savings Bank of Lindsay, the 
First National Bank of Delano and the Producers Savings Bank of 
Visalia. To such officials and directors, to its established reputation 
for reliability, to its strict adherence to correct and conservative 
methods, is due the high standing of the First National in business 
circles both at home and abroad. 



HOLLEY & HOLLEY 

This is the story of the California success of two Yermonters. 
The brothers H. H. and (\ H. Holley came to Los Angeles, Cal., in 
1889, and both graduated from the ])ublic schools of that city and 
from the engineering dei)arlment of Stanford University. C H. 
Holley has been a citizen of Yisalia since 1901, H. H. Holley since 
1904. Before they went into business for themselves, they were both 
engineers for the Mount "Whitney Power Company. It was in 
December, 1907. that they opened an office and began biasiuess in 
Visalia as civil and electrical engineers. 

In April, 1911, H. H. Holley bought the real estate and insurance 
business of the Tulare County Land Company. As engineers, their 
principal business has been the establishment of irrigation systems, 
pumj^ing plants for subdivision and electrical power plant. For 
the last two years they have been quite busy in the organization 
and promotion of the Tulare County Power Company, an electrical 
development for furnishing electric power for irrigation and lighting. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 73J 

the main hydraulic phiut for which will be located at (xlol)e, on the 
Tule river, fourteen miles from Porterville. They have installed 
a steam auxiliary station at Tulare City, which is now in successful 
operation. C. H. Ilolley gives his attention entirely to the electrical 
side of the proposition. He has laud interests in the county, among 
them some orange land, and a vineyard at Exeter. H. H. Holley is a 
meml)er of the Liln-ary Board of Yisalia and in many ways both 
have demonstrated their usefulness as public-spirited citizens. They 
are widely known throughout the state in a professional way and 
both are members of the American Society of Civil Engineers. Hav- 
ing made an exhaustive study of land and water conditions in Tulare 
county, they are as well informed concerning them as it is possible 
for anyone to become, and they otTer their clients the most thorough 
and efficient service available. 



JAMES FISHER 

(Jn North Court street, N'isalia, lived that venerable pioneer. 
.Tames Fisher, who watched and aided the development of the town 
and of Tulare county. Having come to the state in 1857, he was a 
human landmark in local history and until his death a connecting 
link between the old order of things and the new. A son of Spencer 
and Elizabeth (Henderson) Fisher, he was born at Kaskaskia, Ran- 
dolph county. 111., October 13, 1823, and for many years survived the 
place of his birth, which once was the capital of Illinois. Silencer 
Fisher, son of an Illinois pioneer, was born and died in that state. 
His busy and useful years were devoted to farming. Elizabeth 
Henderson, who became his wife, was born near Little Rock, Ark., 
and passed away in the Prairie State. They had five children, of 
whom James was the longest survivor. "Brought up on the home 
farm," says a recent writer, "he obtained his early education in a 
subscription school, whicli was held in a log house chinked with mud, 
and having a puncheon floor and shake roof. On one of the slab 
benches, near the huge fireplace, he was taught to write with a quill 
l)eii. and under the instruction of his teacher made as good progress 
in the three 'R's' as his schoolmates." When he was twenty-one. he 
went to Murphysboro, 111., wheie he found employment in a store, 
living at the old hotel owned liy Dr. Logan, father of Gen. John A. 
Logan. In 1844 he took up his residence in Sbreveport, La., and 
for some time managed a ferry, tlie i)roperty of a man named 
Douglas. Then going back to Illinois, he clerked in a store at 



734 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Chester until 1855. He was now ready for a change of scene and 
of employment and had contracted the "California fever." He came 
out, with horses and wagons, by way of Council Bluffs, Iowa, over 
the old Mormon trail, arriving at Millerton, ("al, after half a year's 
weary travel. He made and fulfilled a contract to cut two million 
feet of sawlogs for Alexander Ball, then built three miles of road 
down the mountains from Ball's mill. Later he purchased ox-teams 
of Ball and hauled lumber from the mill to Millerton and to other 
points. In the spring of 1857 he moved to Visalia, making that town 
the headquarters of his transpoi'tation enterprise, which he continued 
about eighteen months thereafter. His specialty was the transporta- 
tion of manufactured lumber from mill to market. He hauled loads 
of three thousand feet with six yokes of oxen and received $30 a 
thousand ($90 a load) for a five days' round trip. In the fall of 
1858 he went to Sonora, Mexico, bought a herd of branded cattle and 
drove them back to Califoinia, to a place in Antelope valley, Tulare 
county, where he sold them at a profit. 

In 18(30, Mr. Fisher bought two hundred acres of land of R. L. 
Howison and began the improvement of his homestead. As he 
made money he made frequent investments in laud until he became 
one of the extensive property owners of Tulare couuty. Three and 
a half miles northeast of Visalia, in sections eleven, twelve, fourteen 
and fifteen, he had thirteen hundred acres under irrigation by means 
of lillbow creek and St. John's river and its canals. This property, 
Oaklawn Ranch, is devoted to grain aud alfalfa. Pour miles further 
north is the stock farm of ten Imndrcd aud twenty acres. At 
Taurusa, two miles north of Oaklawn Ranch, is a ranch of eiglit 
hundred acres which is included in tlie holdings, and seven miles east 
of Oaklawn Ranch is another of twelve hundred acres, which he gave 
to his son, William L. Fisher. Besides his general farming, Mr. 
Fisher gave much attention to stockraising in the days before tlie 
fence law came into operation, having at times twenty thousand 
sheep. As a stockman he was uncommonly successful, owning manv 
cattle and raising tine nudes and draft horses. 

The lady who became the wife of Mr. Fisher was Miss Mary 
E. Ilowison, daughter of R. L. ITowison, who came to Visalia among 
the pioneers. They were wedded on Mr. Fisher's own home f.-inu. in 
1860. Mrs. Fisher has borne her husband three children : Mrs. 
Alice Markham, who died at Visalia; Mrs. I^innie Bodden of Visalia; 
and AVilliam Lee Fisher. The Fisher farm residence, one of the 
most hospitable in Tulare county, was built in 1875. In his politics 
Mr. Fisher was a Democrat. As a citizen, his public spirit had been 
many times put to the test and.never been found wanting. He died on 
his home ranch September 18, 191 "2. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 7:55 

GEORGE S. CLEMENT 

In Allegan county, Mich., twenty miles from Grand Rapids, 
George Stillman Clement, a i^rominent landowner and business ujan 
of Porterville, was born October 2',], 1856. Near bis boyhood home 
he attended school, and as the son of a farmer he early in life was 
made familiar with the duties connected with farm life. The year 
1864 witnessed the removal of the family to Iowa, and from there in 
1867 they moved still further west, settling in Nebraska and remain- 
ing there until 188U. That year fgund them once more in Michigan, 
and they remained there until 1887, when they came to C'aliforuia and 
settled near Springville, Tulare county. There G. S. Clement pre- 
emjited a tract of government land and from time to time he added 
to this by i)urchase. At the time he settled tliere the country was 
wild and undeveloped and game was so plentiful that he could easily 
kill any number of deer or bear. He has watched the development 
of this part of California and has assisted in it to the extent of his 
ability, having been a member of the school board and identified from 
time to time with other public interests. For a considerable period 
he was a well-known figure in the stock business of the county, con- 
tinuing his residence near Springville until 11)10, when he came to 
Porterville. Here too he has become well and favorably known and 
has purchased considerable city property. 

In 1887, in Michigan, Mr. Clement married Miss Effie May Cronk, 
a native of Michigan, whose father died in that state. Her mother 
was a member of Mr. Clement 's household for fourteen years, or 
until 1912, when she passed away, at the age of eighty-eight. Mr. 
Clement's father, Jacob Clement, was born in the state of New York 
and died aged fifty-four years. His mother, who before her marriage 
was Miss Emily Gault, a native of Michigan, died when her son was 
about five vears old. 



LYMAN L. FOLLETT 

The well-known citizen of Lenioore, Kings county, Cal., whose 
name is the title of this sketcli, was born in Iowa in 186!). a son of 
Granville W. and Lucy (Abel) P^ollett. His father, a native of Ohio, 
born Se])tem])er 25. 18.'14, went to Fremont, Ind., when lie attained 
his majority and became a clerk in a store there. Eventually the 
store was bought by Dr. L. L. Moore, who admitted liiui to partner- 
sliip in the business, the association cojitinuing until ]\lr. Follett 
sold out his interests in Indiana and went to Gi-anville, Iowa. There 
he conducted a general merchandise business six years, and during 



736 TULARP] AND KIxVGS COUNTIES 

most of that time be also filled the office of postmaster. In July, 
1875, he brought bis son, who was in failing health, to what is now 
Kings county and deciding to remain here, opened a store witliin 
the boundaries of what is now Moore's addition to Lemoore and 
continued there until 1877. The railroad having been constructed, he 
found a better location on E and Fox streets, opposite the depot. 
About that time he and J. A. Fox and Dr. L. L. Moore bought squat- 
ters' rights to the quarter-section of land which is now the townsite 
of Lemoore and eventually the railroad bought their interests. For 
a time they raised alfalfa where the business of the town is now 
transacted. Mr. Pollett continued in the mercantile business until 
September, 1882, when his store was destroyed by fire. From that 
time until 1884 he was profitably employed in boring artesian wells, 
and from 1884 to 1894 his principal business was threshing. In the 
last-mentioned year he was elected county assessor of Kings county 
and filled the responsible office with ability and credit for two terms 
until he retired from active life. He died at the home of his son, 
Lyman L. Follett, June 11, 1911. 

In 1868, at Coldwater, Mich., Granville W. Follett married Lucy 
Abel, a native of Ohio, and she bore him four children, of whom Lyman 
L. was the eldest. The others were Mary E., who died in childhood; 
Carrie E., who died in 1877; and C. W., born in 1878, who lives at 
Tuolumne, Cal. In 1888 Mr. Follett married Mrs. Sue Thacker, a 
native of Tennessee. Fraternally he affiliated with the Chosen 
Friends and with the Ancient Order of United Workmen. 

It was in July, 1875, that Lyman L. Follett came with his father 
to the site of Lemoore. He was then about six years old. He was 
reared at Lemoore and educated in a public school there and in the 
high school at San Francisco, then took up steam-engineering and 
ran engines twenty-two years in stationary work as well as in harvest- 
ing and similar operations. In 1909 he engaged in the insurance 
business at Lemoore in connection with real estate operations and 
since then has done much conveyancing and officiated as notary 
]iublic. In Novembei-, 1911, he was apjiointed city clerk and sewer 
insj)ector of Lemoore. He served as deputy-assessor of Kings 
county under his father and was city assessor of Hanford in 1900. 
R. A. Moore, of whom a biogra])liical sketch appears in these ]iages, 
is associated with him in the real estate business. Mr. Follett was 
formerly a member of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and 
his social affiliations now are with the Woodmen of the World, 
the Red Men and the Knights of Pythias. He married in 1894 Miss 
Kate Esery, a native of California, a daughter of Jonathan and 
Sarah A. Esery, and she died in 1908, after having borne him .four 
children — Charles Granville, La Verne. Eileen and Ernest. The 
latter is with his uncle at Tuohmine. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 737 

In the municipal eleotiou at Lemoove, I'Jll, Mr. Follett was 
elected City Clerk, which office he tills with entire credit to himself 
and citv. 



EIJAS JACOB 

The flight of years is mit likely soon to make the people of 
Tulare county, Cal., forget the late Elias Jacob. He gave so much 
energy to the u])lniilding of his personal success, he won so many 
signal triumphs, he did so much for others, that those who labored 
side by side with him in the pioneer days of the modern California 
remember him with a certain tender pride that is nothing short of 
])ers()nal mourning. His success meant the advancement of the coun- 
try's best interests, the extension of all its affairs of moment, social, 
l»olitical and commercial. Tie was Ixirn in Germany, of German 
parents, in 1841. His father was u merchant, and even as a child 
the younger Jacob knew something about business. With a sturdy 
iudei»endence that was characteristic of him, he made his way to 
California when he was only twelve years old, found employment at 
Stockton in a drygoods store, and in that position busied himself 
till 1856, about three years after his arrival. He had learned some- 
thing of American business ways. He liked California, but wanted 
to see more of it before settling down to a good long struggle for 
fortune. He passed a year at Millerton, then the seat of justice 
of Fresno county, and then came to Visalia to take charge of the 
store of his brother-in-law, H. Mitchell. Mr. Mitchell passed away 
in 1859 and young Jacob became his successor and enlarged the store 
and continued the business until 1876. Meantime he had opened 
se\eral stoi'es in dilferent towns in I^resno and Tulare counties, which 
had been successful. Now, his health having declined, he retired from 
trade and devoted himself to the aci|uisition of land, and in the years 
following l)ouglit about forty-live thousand acres in Tulare county, 
his largest single tract containing fifteen thousand two hundi'ed acres. 
It is a matter of most interesting farming history that in some years 
his entii'e acreage was sown to wheat. He imjiroved his jn-operty 
with artesian wells, jmlting down as. many as eight on some single 
tracts, using the flow of water both for iriigation and foi- stock. 
During his mercantile career, in the days before he was an exten- 
sive land ownei', lie was an enthusiastic advocate of the opening up 
of irrigation ditches, and his ventures in that way brought liim 
manifold returns, and the lands he ac(|uircd have grown very \al- 
uable because of theii- ample watei- sujijily. The stock on his hold 
ings long remainci] intact. lie built iiiaiiy houses in \'isalia, all 



738 TULARE AND KIXGS COUNTIES 

of wliioh beoanie a part of iiis estate when he i)assed away. lli> 
deatli occurred October 1, 1902. 

The whole coinmuiiity appreciated Mr. Jacob's personal char- 
acteristics, recognizing' in him a citizen who gave the best of him- 
self for the public advancement. In liis political afliliations he always 
gave his support to the men and measures of the Democratic party, 
and was one of its most influential workers in the county. Wanting 
no political preferment for himself, he rei)eatedly refused such as 
his admiring friends would liave bestowed upon him, at the same 
time i)utting forth his l)est efforts to jiromote the principles he en- 
dorse! and to augment the prestige and influence of his jjarty in 
his part (tf the state. He served for many years as a member of 
the county and state Democratic Central connnittees. Fraternally, he 
was a Royal Arch Mason, and it is a part of the Masonic history of 
Tulare county that he was the orator of the day on the occasion 
of the laying of the corner-stone of the courthouse at Visalia by 
the Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of California. 



LHWIS WASHINGTON HoWLTH 

The late and res])ected citizen of Porterville, Tulare county, 
familiarly known as "Luke" Howeth, was born in DeKalb coimty, 
Ala.. June 4, 1837. a son of Thomas and Nancy Howeth, natives of 
the same state. Following are the names and -birth dates of their 
other children: William, 1818; Tandy B., 1819: Fletcher, 1820; Har- 
vey, 1821; Nelson, 1823; John W., 1821; Eliza. 1825; Martha, 1827; 
Sarah, 1828; Thomas, 1829; Jefferson, 1831; Cornelius, 1833; Cather- 
ine, 1836;" Byron. 1838, and Franklin, 1841. Nelson, Jefferson, Cor- 
nelius and L. W. lived in California. 

In his native state Lewis Washington Ilowetli was reared and 
educated and under his father's instruction and that of some of 
his elder brothers, acquired a |)ractical knowledge of farming. In 
1855, when he was about nineteen years old. he made an overland 
journey to California and mined in Inyo county until 1860, when he 
took up farming in San Joa(|uin county. From there he went to 
Tuolumne county, thence to Sianislaus county, and for a time he 
was engaged in lumbering in Mendocino county. After his mar- 
riage, which occurred September 25, 1867. Mr. Howeth removed to 
'I'uiare county, making his home here until his death, June 9, 1904. 
During his residence here he became one of the most extensive sheep- 
men of the county and he became equally well known as a tiller of 
the soil. 

Fn maidenhood Mrs. Howeth was Miss Sophia (Gardner, born 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 739 

in Jefferson county. III., April 5, 184:5, the daugliter of Jacob and 
Sophia Gardner, natives of Germany, who came to the United States 
in 1840 and settled in Illinois. From there they came to Califoi-nia 
in 1852 by way of the Isthmus of Panama. They located in Tulare 
county and it was here, in ]8r)8, that their daughter became the wife 
of John Ilewey. lie died in 18(14, leaving a widow and two chil- 
dren, Enuua R. and John \V. Ilewey. Mrs. Hewey's marriage to 
Mr. Howeth occurred in Stockton. Of this marriage the following 
children were born: Mary I^ee, who died in infancy; Franklin J., 
who was born in 18(ii»; Thomas A., born in 1871; Lnc\- in 1873, the 
wife of H. ^Y. Manter and the mother of two ciiildren; Elizabeth, 
born in 1876 and the wife of II. J. Thomas; Edgar W., born in 187i); 
May, born in 1881, the wife of Roy Smith and the mother of two 
children; and Hazel, born in 1883, the wife of Fred LaBrague and 
the mother of one child. 

In his political affiliations Mr. Howeth was a Democrat. Fra- 
ternally he was identified with the Independent Order of Odd Fel- 
lows and the Ancient Order of United Workmen. His place in the 
business community is tilled in part by his son, Thomas A. Howeth, 
a native of Stanislaus county. The latter, who was formerly a far- 
mer and merchant, is now handling real estate quite extensively at 
Porterville. 



FRANK P. SMITH 

At San Jose Mission, Santa Clara county, Cal., P^'rank P. Smith 
was born in 1852, a son of Henry C. and Mary (Harlan) Smith, natives 
respectively of Michigan and Illinois. His father crossed the plains 
to California in 1845, witji Colonel Hastings, who blazed the way for the 
tide of emigration that was to follow, a little later, after the discovery 
of gold. For a time he was at Sutter's Fort. He was occupied in whip 
sawing lumber in the woods north of Oakland and then went to the 
mines when the excitement was the greatest. In the early days, when 
Califoi^nia's capital was at Vallejo, he was three times elected to repre- 
sent his district in the legislature, and for some years he was justice 
of the peace at the Mission of San Jose. As an interpreter of the 
Spanish language he had, perhaps, no superior in all Calil'oi-nia. As 
such he was often called u))on to help iu the settlenu^nt of matters of 
gi'eat im)iortance. The last yeai- of his life he passed at Ijivermore, 
Cal., where he passed awa>- in 1S75. He h.id children as follows: Fi'ank 
P.; Emma, who has tatiglit s( liool at Livermore foi- more than thirty 
years; and Cluu'les F., of Richmond. Cal. Mrs. Smith is now living at 
the age of eighty-six years, making her home at Livermore. 



740 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

It was iu the original Contra Costa eonuty tliat Frank P. Suiitli 
grew to manhood. He engaged in ranching there, and after a time 
went to a place near Cambria, on the Pacific, in San Luis Obispo 
county, where he began dairying. After twenty years' residence he 
came, in 1901, to Tulare- county. For four years he operated the 
old Broder ranch, east of Visalia, then came to the place that he has 
since owned and occupied. It is located five miles west of Visalia and 
comprises three hundred and fifty-eight acres, of which a hundred 
acres is in alfalfa, twenty acres in Egyptian corn, and the balance 
in grazing and general farming uses. He has a dairy of forty to 
fifty cows and has usually about a hundred and fifty hogs. As an 
example of the productiveness of California land, he says that in 
one year he cut from eight acres of land four tons of wheat hay and 
then planted the same land to Egyptian corn and produced a thousand 
pounds of corn to the acre. 

In 1882 Mr. Smith married Miss Martha Cha]>pell, a native of 
Gilroy, Santa Clara county, Cal., and she has borne him two sons, 
Henry C. and Charles L. In his work he is assisted by his sons, 
who take an interest in local affairs and are members of Four Creek 
Lodge No. 94, I. O. O. F., in which Henry C. holds the office of vice- 
grand. The father is a Native Son of the Golden West. A man of 
enterprise and public spirit, he has in many ways demonstrated his 
interest in the county and its economic problems. His uncle, Ira Van 
Gorden, was so early a settler in Tulare county that when lie came 
he could count the white inhabitants of the county on the fingers 
of his two hands. 



WILLIAM N. STEUBEN 

The first agent of the Wells-Fargo Express Co. at Visalia, Tulare 
county, Cal., was William N. Steuben, a native of New York, who 
crossed the plains with other pioneers in 1849, mined in Placer county 
three years and came to Visalia in 1852. Soon he was made agent of a 
local express company, called the Overland Stage Company, which 
was later taken over liy the Wells-Fargo company. His recollections 
of tlie Imsiness included the exi)eriences of the days wlien all exjiress 
matter came to California iu the overland stages, guarded by sharp- 
shooting pony express riders, and of the days of the develo])meut of 
the express business along modern lines, in which the railroad is the 
chief utility. He ])assed away in 1892. liaving lieen succeeded as 
agent long since liy his son Zane Steulieii, who was the local represen- 
tative of the company at Visalia for nearly fifty years |)rior to his 
death, which occurred on Washington's birthday, 1908. The elder 
Steuben took an active interest in all public affairs of the town, ]iar- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 741 

ticularly iu the establislaneiit aud developmeut of the Methodist 
Episcopal church, of which he was a devoted member. He married 
]\riss Katherine Hamilton, a native of New York, and tlieir family 
consi.sted of: Zaue and Katherine, married to Ned Hart, who in the 
early days was identified wdth the United States land office at 
Viscilia; her children, William N., Frank R. and Ned Hart, are 
deceased. 

It was in 1852 that Zane Steuben came to California, around 
Cape Horn. For a time he mined at Placerville; later he became 
his father's assistant in the express office, and in timq his successor, 
as has been narrated. He married Mary Louisa Elme,, and they had 
four children : Mrs. Mary E. Burland, William E., John and Catherine 
H., who died in infancy. 

From the day when the Wells-Fargo company began to do busi- 
ness at Visalia to the present time, the Steubeus have been in charge 
of its local affairs. Something of the administration of William N. 
and Zane Steulien has been told. William E. and Mrs. Mary E. 
Burland are now in charge of the office. John Steuben is working for 
the Central California Cannery, having the management of the receiv- 
ing department. The history of the Steuben connection with this 
important interest for so many years is a history of faithfulness to 
duty and of fidelity to all trusts, a history that carries a lesson for 
good to men and women who would succeed worthily and permanently. 



JAMES SWEENEY 

One of the prosperous and highly respected fruit growers of 
Tulare county, Cal., is James Sweeney, who owns a fine ranch near 
Farmersville. Mr. Sweeney was born in Kentucky June 10, 1858, and 
left home when very young, working his way here and there aroimd 
the country. For quite a while he lived at Cairo, 111., and later at St. 
Louis, Mo. His opportunities for schooling were limited, but he has 
a good fund of practical information, which he gained in the "college 
of hard knocks," aud which he finds very useful in various cTuer- 
gencies. 

In 1890 Mr. Sweeney came to California and for some time 
worked for wages on the John Jordan peach, prune and gra]ie ranch 
of eighty acres near Hanford, Kings county, which he later rented and 
operated for twelve years. He came to his i^roductive ranch of one 
hvmdred and ten acres near Farmersville, in 1902. It was formerly 
the property of R. E. Hyde aud is one of the best improved farms in 
the vicinity. He owns a tract of twenty acres near by and two town 
blocks in Farmersville. On his landi he has four hundred apricot 



742 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

trees, three acres of Tragedy Freuch primes, ten acres of Laval peach 
trees and three acres each of orange clingstone, Muir and Siis- 
qnehanna ])eaclies, and has recently set out eighteen acres of French 
and Rolie De Sargent prune trees. Besides he has thirty acres in 
alfalfa and keeps hogs, turkeys and a dairy of twelve cows. 

The woman who liecame Mr. Sweeney's wife was Miss Bridget 
Sweeney, of the same name, a native of Missouri, who has borne him 
nine children, viz.: Timothy. Albert. Nora, John, Mary, Dorothy. 
Michael. Maggie and Viola. As a farmer Mr. Sweeney is thoroughly 
up-to-date and in all his plans and work ]irogressive. His jilace 
is well improved and outfitted with good buildings, modern machin- 
ery and appliances and every essential to its successful cultivation. 
As a citizen he takes an interest in all affairs of the commimity and 
extends public spirited aid to every movement for the general benefit. 



JESSE A. THOMAS 

Among the progressive farmers of his vicinity is Jesse A. 
Thomas, whose father, Dewbart W. Thomas, was a native of Illinois; 
his mother, Clarinda (Harrell) Thomas, was born in Texas. Jesse A. 
Thomas was born January 29, 1868, near Visalia, Tulare county, Cal. 
In 1849 Dewbart ^Y. Thomas cros.sed the plains to California and for 
a little while mined in the northern part of the state. Then he came 
to the Four Creek section of Tulare county, and some time in the 
early fifties liought eighty acres of land on which he established him- 
self as a farmer. Later he took up one hundred and sixty acres of 
government land, which he improved during the succeeding eight 
years, devoting it to the breeding of cattle and horses. He passed 
away in 1888, leaving seven children: Alexander, Jesse A.. Mrs. 
Nancy Hicks, Sarah Janie, Frances, Weiley D. and Carrie. 

Reared and educated in Tulare county, Jesse A. Thomas liegan 
his active life as a farmer in association with his father, and after 
the latter 's death managed the home farm three years. He then 
rented three hundred and twenty acres of land north of Visalia, on 
which he has won success as a farmer and dairyman, maintaining 
a dairy of sixty-seven cows and growing much alfalfa. He now owns 
eighty acres of grazing laud on Cottonwood Creek and another 
eighty acres three miles southeast of Visalia. Thirty acres of the 
latter tract he devotes to Egyptian corn, of which he lias marketed 
ten sacks to the acre. He keeiis about fifty head of cattle and as 
many hogs and is at this time ])lanting jieach trees on fifteen acres. 

In 1889 Mr. Tiionms married Miss Mattie F. De Pew, a native 
of Iowa, and they have had these children : Lawrence L.. Hazel L.. 
Dollie N.. Augusta and Jessie F. Dollie N. has passed away. Fra- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 74:! 

tcnially Mr. Thomas affiliates with V\nn- Creek Lodge, No. !»-t, liide- 
peiulent Order of Odd Fellows, ami with the Foresters of America. 
As a man of enterprise he is making a distinct personal success, and 
as a man of puhlic s])irit he is promjit and generous in the aid of 
movements i)roi)osed for the good of the community. 



JOHN W. WILLIAMS 

One of the well-rememhered citizens of Msalia, Tulare county, 
of the period including the latter part of the last and the ojiening 
year of the jn-esent century was John W. Williams, who was horn in 
South CaroHna and who died at Visalia, his busy and useful life hav- 
ing spanned the period beginning December 12, 1830, and ending 
October 12, 1!»()L lie came to California, by way of the Isthmus of 
Panama, in 1S5;!, and went to the mines of Tuolumne county, where 
he met with various degrees of success and failure. In 1859 he 
located near Porterville, Tulare county, where he divided his time for 
some years lietween farming and the superiutendency of the Tule 
River Indian reservation. It is a matter of local horticultural history 
that he planted the tirst fig tree near Porterville. Later in life he 
was interested in sheep raising in the mountains. The ])ioneer days of 
this comparatively early settler were full of the vicissitudes of life 
on the border and in the mines. His skirmishes with Indians were 
frequent and some of them would make interesting reading were he 
here to supply the details. In 1862 he went to Sacramento, where he 
had a band of horses, and the animals were all lost in the flood of 
that year. Thus suddenly and providentially impoverished, he made 
his way back to Tulare county and made his home in Visalia, where 
he held the office of city marshal twelve years. He jiroved himself 
the man for the jtlace and the time l)y ridding the town of a rough 
and lawless element that had so intimidated former nuirshals that 
not a man of them had stuck to the office after real ojjposition set in. 
Later he was de]iuty sheriff two years under Sheriff Parker and four 
years under Sheriff Kay, ]ierforming the duties of the jiosition with 
characteristic l)ravery and fidelity. 

The lodge of Free and Acce]ited Masons included Mr. Williams in 
its membership, lie manied Julia Storey in LSfi,'). Flcr i)areuts, 
Fari'is and Addla C. (Johnson) Storey, were natives of Geoi'gia. 
Mrs. Storey (bed in her native state, and Mr'. Storey brought his 
child Julia to California in 1852, making the journey by wav of 
Panama. After having been for several years engaged in stock-raising 
in the Santa Claia valley and later near Los Angeles, he located 
at 'N'isalia in 1857. continuing in the stock business. In 18H0 he was 
put in (•omiiiaiid of a local company in Nevada which engaged in war- 



744 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

fare agaiust ]iredatory Indiaus, and lie was killed while leading bis 
men in a fight. Thus he yielded his life in defense of the settlers. 
Storey county, Nevada, was named in his honor. Mrs. Williams has 
one son, J. Fred Williams, a member of the firm of Williams & Butz, 
Visalia. He married Miss Nellie Jones and they have two sons, 
Farris W. and Storey F. As his pioneer ancestors were leaders in 
their time, so is he in his, alive to the business possibilities of this ])art 
of the state and solicitous for the development and advancement of all 
its important interests. The widow of John AV. Williams is passing 
her declining years in the town where he won some of his greatest 
triumphs, cheered by loving relatives and welcomed everywhere by 
a wide circle of admiring friends. 



ROBERT McADAM 

One of the most splendid cxam]>les of the self-made, self- 
reliant and jiersevering men who are now numbered among the 
prosperous and successful operators in California is Robert Mc- 
Adam, whose wide interests and signal success in his undertakings 
have marked him conspicuously in many localities in the common- 
wealth. He is well and favorably known to the ]ieople of Tulare 
county as the promoter and ]iart owner of the celebrated McAdam 
ranches, which are situated five miles west of the city. Mr. McAdam 
is a native of the north of Ireland, his birth occurring September 27, 
1851, in County Mayo, son of Samuel and Eliza (Henderson) Mc- 
Adam, both of whom were nati^■es of Scotland. 

The McAdam was a very ])r(>minent family in County Maj'o, 
where they followed farming and milling and liecame land owners. 
In 1855 Samuel A[(Adam with his family immigrated to Huron 
county, Ontario, Canada, and here in the year following the mother 
passed away, leaving a family of four children: James, who is men- 
tioned more fully elsewhere in this volume; Robert; Sidney, who 
became the wife of Robert Wright, lived in Michigan and died at 
the age of forty years, leaving one child; and Mary, who became 
the wife of John Jordan and died at her home in Toronto, Canada, 
at the age of twenty-four, leaving two children. Samuel McAdam 
married for his second wife Mrs. Sarah (Wiggins) White, of Canada 
and by her had seven sons, viz.: William (deceased), Alfred, Ste- 
phen, Samuel, David, Joseph (deceased), and Charles. 

Robert McAdam, son of Samuel, was aliout four years of age 
when brought from Ireland to Canada. The loss of the mother 
at a tender age jiroved a great hardslii]> and when but seven years 
of age he was ol)liged to take an active pait in the work of pioneer- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 745 

ing, swinging the ax and working in the forests clearing hind for 
many long hours. It is difficult to realize in this day that such 
labor and long hours could l)e withstood l)y such a small boy, who, 
dejirived of leisure hours and the many games and diversions which 
go to cheer the heart of a boy, was instead forced to live the life 
of a laborer and become inured to the hardest kind of work. While 
he used the ax and handspike his education was of necessity neg- 
lected and as the schools were not modern or well equipped be had 
little op])ortunity to obtain a thorough training. However, by nat- 
ural ability, close observation and attending diligently to good read- 
ing he became well informed and his wide and many experiences 
have been the most able teacher he has ever had. At the age of 
twenty-three Mr. McAdam married Miss Mary Elizabeth Gemmill, 
of Canada, and six years later they removed to Pembina county, Da- 
kota territory, where they remained for nine years, successfully 
farming a tract of six hundred and forty acres especially in wheat. 
Selling their place they went to St. Martins Parish, Louisiana, where 
Mr. McAdam accepted a position as manager for the Huron Plan- 
tation, a large sugar plantation of eight thousand acres, owned by 
an English syndicate, and under his able su]>ervision the business 
])rospered, a retinery was built at a cost of $800,000 and the enter- 
prise rapidly advanced. Finding that the climate there did not agree 
with him he came to Pasadena, Cal., in May, 1892, buying thirteen 
acres of orange grove for which he paid $6,000, and this he sold 
eighteen years later at a good i)rotit. Meanwhile he had become the 
owner of a two-huudred-acre ranch, seventeen miles southeast of 
Los Angeles, which he sold in 1904 and then came to Tulare county 
to purchase sixteen hundred acres, five miles west of Tulare which 
he has improved and developed until it is now one of the best of its 
kind in the state. A further mention of this ranch ]iroperty is given 
in this volume imder the name of the McAdam Ranches. 

Eleven children were born to Robert McAdam and wife, three 
of whom died in childhood. Of those surviving we mention the fol- 
lowing: Isabelle, jn-incipal of the Linda Vista schools, is the widow 
of John McAli)ine, and has a daughter, Catherine. Annie is a senior 
in the University of Southern California at Los Angeles. Frank S. 
is mentioned elsewhere in this iiublication as is also his brother 
William J. Grace is attending a private school at Pasadena. Robert 
anil Fred are students at the high school at Pasadena. Helen is 
in the grammar school there. About two years ago Mr. McAdam 
became interested in mining. He is the owner of the Castle Dome 
Silver and Lead mines in Yuma county, Ariz., and it has alread;^ 
been bi'ought uj) to a paying proposition; with the splendid energy 
of Mr. McAdam united with that of his two sons. AVilliam ,]. and 
Frank S., the present managers, the mines bid fair to become one 



74(5 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

of the great dividend payers of Arizona. Mr. MeAdani is also in- 
terested in a gold mine at Goldtield, Nev., and one at Kingman. 
Ariz. In fraternal circles he affiliates with the Masons, is a Knight 
Templar, member of the blue lodge, chapter, commandery and Scottish 
rite. The family are members of the Lincoln Avenue Methodist Epis- 
copal church at Pasadena, where tliey make their home at No. 76(5 
No. Orange Grove avenue, surrounded by many well-wishing friends 
who have come to appreciate their gentle and kindly ways, their 
unfailing hospitable welcome and their generous, thoughtful living. 



JAMES McADAM 

The McAdam family of which James McAdam is a member num- 
bers among its representatives some of the l)est, most reliable and 
active citizens of the state of California, their interests being mostly 
in Tulare county and throughout southern California. James Mc- 
Adam, whose residence is now No. 1248 East Colorado street, Pasa- 
dena, is a native of Ireland, having been born in County Mayo, 
March 17, 1849, son of Sanniel and P]liza (Henderson) McAdam, of 
whom more extensive mention is made in the biograi)hy of Robert 
McAdam elsewhere in tliis publication. 

Coming to Canada in 1855 with his i)arents, here the next year 
his beloved mother passed away, leaving her sons to face the battle 
of life together with two sisters who have married and passed away. 
Like his brother, Robert, Mr. McAdam had few educational advan- 
tages, but was comi)elled while still a young child to assume the 
duties of hai-d and arduous toil, which though beyond his strength 
and years served later to create in him the strong character, inflexible 
will and unswerving courage for which he is known. In 1884 he re- 
moved to Pembina county, Dakota territory, and with little or no 
capital he began to work for himself and after three years had fully 
paid for a hundred and sixty-acre wheat farm which was located 
about three miles from a railroad station. Selling his holdings there 
in 1894 he came to Pasadena and immediately purchased property 
which he imi)roved and sold, buying more and entering the real 
estate business which has increased until he today is i-eputed to be 
one of the prosperous men of Pasadena. He is the owner of a quar- 
ter block of business buildings there, located on East Colorado street, 
which is estimated at .$(!(),( )0(). His interest in the dairy I'anch in 
Tulare county is large and he has given close attention to all his 
property with a view toward impro\-ement and bringing it to the 
best state possible. A clear-headed, keen-sighted Imsiness man, who 
has attained success largely through his straightforward, honest 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 747 

manner of dealing, he lias ever displayed sagacious judgment in his 
operations, and he is a thorough, practical worker in every line he 
undertakes. 

Mr. McAdani l^ecame interested in Tulare county i)ro]ierty in 
1910, when he purchased three hundred and twenty acres seven miles 
west of Tulare. He has improved this place by erecting three barns 
thereon, 44x60 feet in dimensions, with cement floors and stanchions 
of the most modern kind. In his dairy business every i)recaution is 
taken to promote the most extreme cleanliness, the most modern 
methods being used. Three irrigating electric pumping jilants have 
been installed and every improvement is made toward developing 
the land. He is a great believer in the fertile San Joaquin valley as 
a splendid field for dairying purposes and the handling of stock. 
In spite of his meager educational advantages he has become a 
well-posted man through wide reading and .study and he is looked 
upon as an authority on many subjects of the day, his most pleas- 
ing characteristics lieing his modesty and generosity to aid others in 
whatever manner is in his power. He believes in intelligence coupled 
with ability and industry and has no time for drones. 

In 187.'! James McAdam was married in the county of Huron, 
Canada West, near Toronto, to Miss Mary Ann Musgrove. They 
have two adopted children to whom they have given loving care, 
Pearl, who is now seventeen years of age, and Edith, eight years of 
age. Mr. McAdam is a Mason, being a member of the Masonic lodge, 
No. 272, Pasadena, and is also a devout attendant of the First Pres- 
byterian church, of which his family also are members. A great 
admirer of William Jennings Bryan, for whom he has voted for 
Pr^-sident three times, he followed his politics as far as national 
atfairs are concerned. While evincing the greatest interest in civic 
affairs he has never sought public oflice, choosing to fill the dutie-; of 
p private citizen with conscientious effort. 



HERMAN T. MILLER 

Herman T. Miller, city attoi'iiey of Msalia, of Plxeter and of 
liindsay, Tulare county, Cal., is a native son of Tulare county, having 
Iteen born in Visalia in 1874. His father, Artelius (). Miller, a con- 
tractor and builder, came to \'isalia in 1858 and died there in 1888, 
after a career of success and honor. Mr. Miller was educated in the 
public schools and the high school of Visalia so far as his ('ducation 
was |)ossible in those eflicient institutions, was gra<Iuat('(i from the 
Universitv of California in 1S!)I» and from the Universitv of Miclii- 



748 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

can at Ann Arbor, with the degree of Bachelor of Laws, in 1901. 
lietiirning to Visalia he has prospered as a general practitioner and 
become well known throughout the state as the head of the legal 
departments of the three cities mentioned. He became city attorney 
of Visalia in 1902 and the Exeter and Lindsay appointments followed. 
On December 11, 1907, Mr. Miller married Miss Blanche Hewel, 
a native of California, and a daughter of the Hon. A. Hewel, for- 
jnerly judge of the Superior court of Stanislaus county, and their 
daughter, Arabella E., was born June 10, 1910. Mr. Miller is an Elk, 
a Mason and a Shriner. As a citizen he is influential and ])ul)lic- 
spiriti'd. 



MERRITTE T. MILLS 

In Sacramento county, Cal., Merritte T. Mills was born January 
13, 1853, a son of AVilliam H. and Louisa (Lawless) Mills, natives 
res]iectfully of Georgia and Missouri. The father crossed the plains 
in 1849, with an ox-team outfit that consumed six months in making 
the journey. After mining some time in Calaveras county he located 
in Tulare county, two miles southeast of Visalia, late in 1853, and 
later took up a quarter-section of land nearby, where he was for 
ten years engaged in the cattle business. Disposing of that interest 
finally in 1874, he located near Lindsay, where he farmed during 
the ensuing ten years. Then he returned to the timber belt, locating 
near the place of his first settlement, and there he and his good 
wife lived out their days and passed to their reward. Of their chil- 
dren Merritte T. and William H. survive. 

Since his father passed away, Merritte T. Mills has been ranch- 
ing on his own account. For a time he operated one hundred and 
fifty acres on the i)lains in the neighborhood of Lindsay, and during 
the last six years he has conducted his present ranch of forty acres 
with much success. At this time he has twelve acres in prunes 
and twenty acres in peaches of the following-named varieties: Phil- 
lips clingstones, Muirs, Susquehannas, Fosters, Tuscan clingstones, 
and early Alexanders. These trees were all planted by his own hands, 
and though his orchard is only seven years old it has produced good 
crops. His prunes are of the French variety and in 1911 he sold 
ninety-five tons of them. The soil of his ranch is rich, his irrigation 
facilities are good and the jilace is in every way well adapted to 
jarune and peach culture. Some of his acreage is devoted to alfalfa. 
He has about eighty hogs of the Jersey Red variety and a dairy of 
eighteen cows. 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 749 

The woman who became Mr. Mills's wife was Miss May \'an 
Loan, a native of Wisconsin, and she has borne him eight children: 
Lula B., Elizabeth, Eussell, Howard, Roy, Neva, Ford and Eva. As 
a citizen, Mr. Mills is public-spirited, devoted to the l)est interests 
of the conmumity. 



ROBEET NULL 

The first day of July, 18o5, Robert Null was born in Jefferson 
county, Mo. He received a limited couunon school education and 
when he was nineteen years old, which was in 185J-, he crossed the 
plains to California with neighl)ors named McVay and Nelson. Their 
party had but three wagons, Init there were larger parties before 
and behind them and four hundred head of cattle were driven on 
ahead. They came by way of the North Platte, the Sublett cutoff and 
the sink of the Humboldt, crossing the mountains east of the Amer- 
ican valley, and eighty head of their cattle fell victims to alkali. 
Indians menaced but never really molested them. Six months after 
their departure from Missouri they arrived at Marysville, Cal., and 
began mining on Nelson's creek, where Mr. Null op.erated eight years. 
Then he fell ill of mountain fever and went south to recuperate. 
He worked a year on a ranch, then returned to mining, operating 
at Diamond mine and at Gold Hill for a year with good success. 
Then, following false lures, he and others tried to find mythical mines 
in one place and another until he became discouraged and went to 
Oregon, where he lived until 1884. Then he took sixty head of horses 
to Kansas. He bought them at $10 a head and sold them there at 
$50 to $60 a head, making consideral)le money. He returned to Cali- 
fornia in December, 1892. He bought eighty acres of land a mile 
and a half north of Traver, where he now lives, and has since made 
further purchases. He has twenty acres in alfalfa and is conducting 
a dairy, having a goodly number of cows and twelve head of young- 
heifers, his cows yielding him a profit of $75 each per annum. Four 
horses are required on his ranch and he has a flock of al)()ut one 
hundred turkeys. 

Politically, Mr. Null is a Socialist. In his religious affiliation 
he is a Methodist. He married Miss Mary Jane AVarmoth, a native 
of Grundy county. Mo., and a daughter of John and Mary Jane ( ( 'ol- 
lins) Warnioth. Mr. Warnioth crossed the jilains with his family in 
18(51. Following are the names of ten children born to Mr. and Mrs. 
Null: .lolm D., Robert Lee, Mai'y Ellen, Nancy J., Louisa, T. Oscar, 
Richard, Alvin 15., Cynthia and Anna B. John D. married Bertha 



750 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Tarr, and they live in Tnlare county. Robert Lee married Mrs. 
Anna Banty. Mary Ellen, now Mrs. Lee, has four children, Lilly 
M., Mary Z., James W., and Ru])y E. Nancy J. married Allen An- 
derson, has borne him five cjiildren, Robert L., Alfred, Mary E., 
Vernon and Leland, and they live near Orosi. Louisa married Wil- 
liam Crawford and they have children named Robert R., Aaron, 
Winnie M. and Mary E. T. Oscar married Lily Mullis; they have 
a daughter uamed Mary F. and live near Orosi. Cynthia married 
A. R. Thompson and resides at Hanford; they have two children, 
Harold and Helen. Richard and Alvin are unmarried. Anna B. 
became the wife of Edward Hayes and has borne him a son, Robert 
Earnest, and is living in Tulare county. 



GEORGE W. POLLOCK 

In Washington county, Ind., George W. Pollock was born, Feb- 
ruary 7, 1856. He was reared among rural surroundings and gained 
such education as was available to him by attendance at the schools 
taught near his boyhood liome. He was brought u]) to useful work 
and thus prepared to make his way in the world. 

When young Pollock left his native state it was to go into the 
neighboring state of Illinois. After a stay of two years there he 
came, in 1S80, to Califoi-nia and settled northeast of Stockton, where 
he lived and labored with more or less success for six years. From 
there he came to Tulare county and found em]>loyment with the 
Comstock people, operating sawmills in the mountains. Thus he 
busied himself six years, then he rented a hundred and twenty acres 
of land four miles east of Visnlia. and farmed for two years, raising 
wheat, barley, alfalfa and stock. His next venture was on more 
rented land, this time two and a half miles south of Goshen, the old 
Tom Coughran ranch, two hundred and forty acres of rich soil, which 
produced for him alfalfa and stock. There he remained eight years, 
making some money and learning a good deal aliout California farm- 
ing and stock-raising. In 1907 he bought the sixty acres which 
constitute his home farm, on which he has usually about two hun- 
dred hogs and raises considerable fruit. Twenty-five acres of his 
land is in alfalfa. Looking back on his life thus far Mr. Pollock 
sees in it a record of u))s and downs, but the ui)s have been more 
permanent than the downs, and gradually, as all good things are 
accomplished, he has gone forward to greater and still greater suc- 
cess. He counts his exjjerience as one of work and rewards, and tries 
to forget the obstacles he has had to overcome. 

In 1893 Mr. Pollock married Margaret Preston, of ^Missouri 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 751 

birtli, who lias ln)riie liiiu toiii' cliiklren : Ereal, Kita, Cieorge aucl 

Elizabeth. Socially he is a Woodman of the World. As a citizen 

he has in minieions instances demonstrated an ailmirahle jniblic 
spirit. 



DANIEL WOOD 

A native of the Emjiire State, at one stage of our national 
development a mother of pioneers, Daniel Wood went early to Wis- 
consin, whence, in 1849 he came across the plains to California as 
a member of a party of thirteen whose experiences during their six 
months ' journey were perilous and painful in the extreme. Once- they 
were obliged, in the desert, to burn some of their wagons for fuel, 
and a few of the party died of cholera. After his arrival in Cali- 
fornia, Mr. Wood went into the mines at Hangtown, where flour was 
.$50 a sack, one onion cost H^.'!, and eggs readily brought $1 each. Of 
course it will be understood that the lack of local production and the 
excessive cost of transportation were factors in determining these 
almost prohibitive ))rices. When he was done with the mines, he 
went to San Francisco, wliose Indian camps were then its most con- 
spicuous features. From there he went to Mari]iosa county, where 
he taught school for a time, lie was one of the first white men to visit 
the Yosemite valley. Eventually the fortunes of the border brought 
him to Visalia and soon he was employed to teach in the old Visalia 
Academy and later given charge of schools in other jiarts of Tulare 
county. He was one of the founders and a constituent member of the 
first Methodist class organized in Visalia and was the ]iioneer berry- 
grower of Tulare county, taking off a cro]) of sti'awberries worth 
$1600 from one acre of ground. During the pioneer period he oper- 
ated a ranch of two hundred and forty acres near Farmersville, 
Tulare county. P'or some time he held the office of justice of the 
peace, by authority of which he performed the marriage ceremony 
of the famous Chris Evans. 

The state of Indiana includes what was the birthplace of Miss 
Carrie Goldthwaite, who became Mr. Wood's wife, and bore him 
children as follows: Daniel (}., George W., Litta, Stella, Pldna and 
Edward. John W. Goldthwaite, Mrs. Wood's father, came to Cali- 
fornia by way of the overland trail, in the pioneer days, took up gov- 
ernn'ent land and deveIo])ed a ranch in Tulaic county. Ife saw 
service in the l^'nion army (huiug the Civil wai- and had an intimate 
personal acciuaintance with (Jen. W. T. Slicnuaii. in the years 
after the war until lie passed away he was a leading spirit among 
Californians of the (Jrand .\nn\' of the Republic. 



752 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

HENRY 0. RACiLE 

On October 15, 1860, Henry O. Ragle was horn in Hawkins county, 
Teun. His parents, natives of Virginia, l)otli died in Tennessee. They 
were representatives of old Southern families and his mother was a 
woman of rare quality, who to an nnconunon degree impressed her 
cliai-acter on her children. He was al)out twenty-three years old 
wiien he came to California, well equijuied l)y public school educa- 
tion and by nuu-li practical exjjerience in farming to take u]) the 
battle of life in this then comparatively i)rimitive agricultural re- 
gion. For a time after he came here he did farm and ranch work 
for wages, but soon he took up one hundred and sixty acres of land 
and began to imi)rove and cultivate it. From time to time since 
then he has bought other tracts until he is now the owner of more 
land* than nine hundred acres, some of it grazing land, some of it 
fruit land, and some of it devoted to grain. Besides lieing a sue 
cessful farmer he is quite an extensive handler of cattle. 

In 18!)4 occurred the marriage of Henry 0. Ragle, son of Henry 
Ragle, to Miss Jennie K. Underwood, a native of Tennessee, whose 
father has ]iassed away, but whose mother is still living. Mrs. Ragle 
has borne her husband four sons and three daughters. Clarence is 
a student in a business college at Fresno; Eva is in granmiar school; 
Lloyd, Herliert, Oscar and Marie are, in the pulilic school ; Dorothy 
is the baby of the family. 

Without capital when he came to Tulare <'0unty, Mr. Ragle has 
been successful beyond many of his friends and neighbors and as he 
has advanced he has been ready at all times to extend a helping 
hand to those who have been less fortunate. His interest in the 
community is such that he has been public-s]iiritedly helpful to every 
movement for the general uplift. Especially has the cause of educa- 
tion commanded his attention, and though having no liking for public 
otifice, he has been impelled by it to accept that of school trustee, in 
which he has served with much efficiency, with an eye single to the 
educational advancement of his neighborhood. 



SANTOS BACA 

A descendant of old Mexican and Spanish families, Santos Baca 
was born in San Bernardino county, Cal., in what is now Riverside 
county, November, 1865. His father was Jesus Cabeza De Baca, 
who was the son of Jose Baca, for whom Vacaville was named. 
(The name Baca was formerly spelled Vaca, hence the s]ielling of 
Vacaville.) Jesus Cabeza De Baca married Inez Baca, a native of 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 753 

Spain, and lie engaged in llie st()cl< linsiness and grazed sheep where 
the city of Riverside now stands. He was directly descended from 
Sjjanish discoverers who landed on the shores of the United States 
in the middle of the sixteenth century and eventually settled in New 
Mexico. In 184:9 the parents of Santos Baca came to California with 
ox-teams from New Mexico, and lioth passed away at old Siiaiiishtown, 
near Riverside. 

When Santos Baca was seven years old he was taken to Sivcra- 
mento to attend school and in 1880 made his way to Tulare county 
and thence to Riverside. In 1883 he went to Vacaville but the same 
year found him in the employ of a liveryman in Tulare city. In 1902 
he located at Porterville and was employed in the same busiiiess 
until 1910, at which time he liecame one of the proprietors in the 
pjxchauge stables. He has from time to time interested himself in 
other enterprises and has evidenced a lielpful solicitude for the ad- 
vancement and prosperity of the community. Fraternally he affiliates 
with the Woodmen of the World and the Ancient ( )rder of United 
Workmen. 

In 18i)2 Mr. Baca mai'ried Miss Nancy E. Doty, a native of Mis- 
souri, who has borne him six children, as follows: Fay and Harold, in 
the higli school; Glenn and Rita, in the grammar school; Rene, in the 
primary school, and Damon. 



JOHN H. LEACH 

One of the comparatixely few citizens of Porterville, Tulare 
coimty, Cal., who saw the place come into being on the prairie and 
have witnessed and ])romoted its develo])ment to the ])i'esent time is 
John H. Leach. A native of Washington county. 111., l)orn January 
15, 18-I-9, he was reared and educated in Clinton county, whither his 
jiarents moved when he was a small child, there taking up the re- 
s]i()nsil)ilities of active life. In the spring of 1880 he left Illinois 
fnv the Black Hills, wIkmh' he prospected for gold and worked in 
the mills four years. After that he lived for a time in Missouri 
and later until 1890 in Kan.sas, where he followed the carpenter ti-ade. 
In that year he located near Porterville, Cal. He soon bought prop- 
eity and later brought his family on from the east. After he was 
well started here he bought land, planted orange seed, raised the 
plants and set out tive acres, which he still owns, and has given 
consideralJe attention to truck gardening. 

In 1875 Mr. Leach married Miss Louisa Lewis, a native of Clin- 
ton county. 111., and they have two children. Their daughtei', Mamie 
E., is a menil)er of theii- hnuschold. Their son, William S., is an 



754 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

arcliitectuial draftsman aud resides iu Baltimore, Md. Mr. Leaeli's 
success is all his own and he is recognized as a self-made man who 
deserves the high place in the commnnit.v that is his, not alone 
by his record as a man of affairs, Init liy tlie fine character which 
has been manifest in his entire career and the generons pul)lic 
spirit that makes him i)romptly responsive to every demand for the 
general good. Mr. Leach's mother, now pii;hty-six years, is a mem- 
ber of his household. 



SAMUEL C. BROWN 

In Franklin county, ^'t.. Sanniel C'arr Brown, late of Visalia, 
Tulare county, Oal, was born August 17, 1826. He died December 31, 
1908. His parents were James and Sarah (Smith) Brown, natives 
respectively of Rhode Island and of Massachusetts, and his father 
was long a merchant and an extensive land owner at Swanton. Frank- 
lin county, N. YJ, but they moved eventually to St. Lawrence county, 
N. Y., where they passed away. Of their four sons and three daugh- 
ters, Samuel C'arr was the youngest. He was educated in the com- 
mon schools, at the Pennsylvania College in the Western Reserve, and 
at Oberlin College, where he was a student in 1S48. Under tiie in- 
struction of Judge Wallace of St. Lawrence county, N. Y., he ac(|uired 
a rudimentary knowledge of law; later through long connection with 
the justice court, he gained considerable experience of its practice 
and during all his active life gave much attention to legal matters. 
In 18-tI) he located in Pike county. 111., and six mouths later joined a 
band of gold seekers who were turning their faces toward California. 

The joui'uey across the plains was begun in April and in Sejitem- 
ber Mr. P)rown reached the North Fork of the American river, where 
he mined for a year, but meeting with no success then went to San 
Francisco, where he was for six months a steward on the Vincennes, a 
sloop sailing out and in that port. In January, 185:2, he came to 
Tulare county in company with about fifty people, most of whom 
were farmers from Iowa. Learning that the Indians had two years 
before killed the primitive white settlers, they built a stockade in 
which they erected eight or ten log houses. He came as a hunter 
and remained as a citizen, to practice law, teach school, buy land and 
engage in multifarious activities as settlement advanced and civil- 
ization took root and spread. In the Civil war period he was an 
active sympathizer with the Union cause and Confederate s>T[n])athiz- 
ers made three attemjits to wreck his office. Imt United States troops 
preserved order till the end of the war, liy a lequest of a committee 
of tiirec prominent Re])ublicaiis and three prominent Democrats. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 755 

For a time Mr. Brown had as his law partner William (J. Morris, 
later was a memher of the firm of Brown & Daggett, and in 1891 
retired from i)rofessional woik and until his death gave personal 
supervision of his extensive property interests, which included an 
office l)iiilding in Visalia, twenty-five hundred acres of farm land 
near that town and a half interest in four thousand acres in the 
mountain foothills, ills land was divided into five ranches, most of 
which he usually leased. Many of the important enterprises of 
Visalia were encouraged and promoted by Mr. Brown. He was 
influential in the establishment of the Bank of Visalia, of which he 
was a director. The same may he said of his relationship to the local 
ice concern and to the \'isalia Steam Laundry. He was a director of 
the Tulare Irrigation Company and of the soda works. Politically 
he was a Freesoiler and later a Repulilicau. During early days here 
he was for two years district attorney, for two terms mayor and for 
three terms a member of the city council. 

After Mr. Brown became a citizen of A'isalia he married Miss 
Mary F. Kellenburg, a native of Illinois. The following are their 
cliildren who are living: May, wife of William IT. Hammond, of 
Visalia ; Fannie, wife of C. G. Wilcox of Visalia ; Philip S., who is 
succeeding as a farmer in Tulare county; Maude, who married J. E. 
Combs, of Visalia; an<l Helen, who is a member of her mother's 
household. 



PETER BONDSON 

The progressive and successful farmer whose name is above, 
and who is well known in Hanford and vicinity for his high character 
and res)iectal)]e achievements, was born in 1848. He is a native of 
Denmark, a country that lias given to the United States many citizens 
of the purest motives who are leaders in their communities and ex- 
ami)les to all who take notice of their integrity, industry and deter- 
mination, national traits brcmght to bear upon their careers in a 
strange land. Peter Bondson came to America in 187(1 ami was a 
)>i()neer at Merced. In 187() he nuule his advent in Kings county, set- 
tling on the land which he has since develo]ied into one of the most 
pi-oductive and valuable fnniis in i1s vicinity. Originally tlic place 
consisted of three hundred ami twenty acres, hut in the pi'ocess of 
biinging it to its pi'esent peifcctiiui he reduced it to two hundred 
and forty acres. He gave eighty acres to his son Arlhiii-. and he 
now gives his attention to geiu'ral farming, hog and cattle i-aising. 
Ilis stock is of good breeds and is always so well fed and skillfully 
han lied that it liriiigs the highest market price. The farm is out 



756 TULARE AND KINGS ("OrXTlKS 

fitted with inodeni buiknuys aud accessories aud is in every respect 
tliorouglily up-to-date. 

The (irst marriage of Mr. Boudson occurred Feliruary 2'2. 1882, 
uniting him with Cordelia Nauce. aud they have tiu-ee living cbildreu: 
Stella, wife of A. L. :Miller; Pearl, wife of Charles C. Church; and 
Artliur. On Juue 16, 1910. ^Iv. IVmdsou married Miss Maud Waite, a 
young woman of many accomplishments, who is his devoted helper in 
his endeavors for success. They have one daughter. Ethel. Mr. Boud- 
son has not thus far had nuicli to do with practical jiolitics. but he has 
decided opinions upou (juestions of local aud national policy to which 
he gives expression at tlie polls. A friend of education, he has served 
two years as school trustee, and in that ca[)acity has ably served the 
interests of his district. On several occasions his public spirit has 
commended him to his fellow citizens who recognize in him one who 
is ever ready to encourage to the extent of his ability any proposition 
having for its object the general uplift of the community. 



WILLIAM WILLARD BROWN 

In Jefferson county. N. V.. William Willard Brown was born 
No\ember VX 1851. When he was tive years old he was brought to 
California by her mother, his father. William A. Brown, having come 
out a year before to look o\er the ground "with a view to making a 
settlement here. The father was a school teacher and he was em- 
ployed at Stockton aud Visalia. He opened a school at Camels Cross- 
ing, Kings river, one of the first schools in the county. He enlisted 
as a musician for service in the Civil war. returned east aud was 
transferred to El Paso .Texas, where he was nmstered out and began 
teaching school at Terrill, Texas. He spent his remaining days in that 
state. 

The sou left Visalia in the fall of 185!), when he was about eight 
years old, with the family of his mother and her second husband, 
Huffman M. White. The latter homesteaded one hundred and 
sixty acres of land in the Frazier valley and went into the shee]) 
business, giving some intelligent attention to fruit growing. Mr. 
Brown states that in 18(i4 the first orange trees ever planted in Tulare 
county were planted on the farm of his step-father. The boy was 
educated in the schools of Tulare county and remained on the White 
ranch until 1882. He took np a government homestead in 1878 and 
remained on it most of the time until 1889, for a time making his home 
with his mother. In the year last mentioned he sold out and located 
in Porterville. Since settling in town he has been engaged in the 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 7r.7 

machine business and sinr-e 1!H)4 lias heen the kx-al rei)resentative of 
the Samson Iron Works of Stockton and San Francisco. 

In 1882 Mr. Brown was a guide for the United States Govern- 
ment surveying party working in the mountain district of Tulare 
county and for a time he filled the office of road overseer. So well 
developed is his public spirit that he has been found ready at all 
times to aid to the extent of liis ability movements which in his 
opinion have j)romised to benefit the community. Socially he has 
associated with the Knights of Pythias since 1884 and he has repre- 
sented his lodge at the Grand Lodge in 1880 and again in 1911. 

In 1876 Mr. Brown married Rosalia Ford, a native of California, 
and daughter of J. P. Ford, a i)ioneer of 18.'j6. She has borne him 
six children, three of whom are living. Roy F. is in New Mexico. 
Lahalla A. is the wife of Thomas I'erguson, of Porterville, Cal., 
and Pauline is a student in the Porterville high school. 



ALFRED BALAAM 

It was in Louisville, Ky., that Alfred Balaam, stockman and 
farmer, ex-sheriff of Tulare county, was born September 5, 1839, a 
son of George and Sarah (Swain) Balaam, natives of England. The 
family moved from Kentucky to Arkansas and from there to Texas, 
and from the Lone Star State came with a train of fifty ox-wagons 
across the plains to California in 1853, settling at El Monte, Los 
Angeles county, where they remained until the end of December, 1857. 
They then set out for Tulare county, where they arrived soon after 
January 1, 1858. The head of the family took up land a mile west of 
Farmersville, entering it at the government land office, a raw tract 
of one hundred and sixty acres, on which he raised horses, cattle 
and sheep. He was a man of ability who took a leading part in 
local ijolitics, served in the office of justice of the peace and promoted 
the best interests of the community as long as he lived. 

The following nine children of George and Sarah (Swain) 
Balaam are named in order of biitli: George, the eldest, is dead; 
Sarah Ward; Ann Wai-d: Martha is the wife of Joseph Homer; 
Frank S. ; Alfred; Edward; Mary Van Gorden is dead; and Mrs. 
Emily Van Gordon resides at Watsonville. 

Alfred Balaam was educated in the public school near his boy- 
hood home and early worked with his father at stock-farming. Later 
he farmed for himself and at one time operated a half section of land. 
At this time he owns thirty-one acres near Farmersville. Tulare 
county, which he devotes principally to hay, alfalfa and Egyptian corn. 
For sixteen vears he has filled the office of roadmaster and has been 



758 TULARE AND KIXGS COUNTIES 

iiistiumeutal in iutruduciui;- great impiovemeuts iu local roads and 
bridges. By appointment of Sheriff Wells, be served as deputy 
sheriff under that olhoial and in 1885 was elected sheriff of Tulare 
county, which office he filled for one term with great efficiency and 
integrity. A man of abundant ]mlilic spirit, he has always promoted 
the prosperity of the community. 

In 1862 ]\Ir. Balaam married Anna AYhitlock. a native of Oliio. 
wlio bore him two children, Charles and Nellie. His present wife, 
wliom he married in 1869, was Miss Marion Bequette, a native of 
California, and children as follows were born to them: Ida Higdon. 
Carl and I^dward. 



DANIEL FINN 

The late prominent and successful man of affairs of Kings 
county, Cal., Daniel Finn of Hanford, was born at Oswego. N. Y.. May 
11, 1858, and lived there, meanwhile acMjuiring an education, until he 
was about twenty years old. He then went to Colorado and between 
that state and Idaho and Nevada he divided his time until in 1883. 
when he came to Colusa county, Cal. and farmed about a year. In 
1884 he located in Hanford, which has since been his home town, 
and it is probal>le that in all the years since he came no man has 
been more devoted than he to its growth and development. For 
about ten years he worked on farms and conducted a drayiug and 
transportation business and in the period 1895-1901 he was in the 
retail liquor trade. After the oil business began to assume some 
importance in California he gave attention to it and in 1898 was one 
of the locators and incorporators, whose foresight was destined to 
bring success to the Hanford Oil Company, the property of which 
was located at Coalinga, where the first discovery of oil was made 
in that district outside of section twenty. The holdings of this com- 
pany were bought in small pieces liy the Standard Oil Company in 
1906-1907. the parcels having been deeded one by one to Martin & 
De Sabla, who later transferred them to the great corporation men- 
tioned. Mr. Finn was president of the Hanford Oil Company until 
the termination of its corporate existence; he was one of the organ- 
izers and was from the first vice-president of the Hanford Gas and 
Power Company, which was incorporated in 1902; and in 1901 he 
was one of the incorj^orators of the Old Bank, of which he was a 
director through all its history and of which he was president after 
the death of the late President Biddle. As a Knight of Pythias he 
passed all the chairs of the lodge. In 1890 he married Mary Corey, 
who survives him. Mr. Finn was a self-made man, and found his true 



TULARK A XI) KTXdS COUNTIES 759 

field of eudeavur aud the i)r()tital>le scene of his .success at llaiifurd. 
hence the reason for his manifest devotion to the town and to all 
of the various interests wliicli make for its advancement and pros- 
perity. It is doul)tful if any measure for the general good was pro- 
posed that did not receive his co-operation. As his fortunes advanced 
he was more and more .yeneronsly responsive to demands upon his 
public spirit. He passed away June 22, 191:!, mourned by many 
friends and admirers. 



PHILIP S. BROWN 

The home of Philip .S. Brown, on the Exeter road near Visalia. 
is one of the show places of that part of Tulare county. A fine new 
residence graces the i)roperty, and its approach is by way of a road- 
way past a fountain aud underneath palms and other ornamental 
trees and bordered on either side with many of the kinds of flowers 
for which California is famous. 

In Visalia, June 15, 1867, Philip S. Brown was born, a son of S. 
C. Brown, who came to Tulare county among the pioneers. After 
he had finished his education he engaged in the real estate business 
in Visalia, as a member of the firm of Frasier, Prendergast & Brown, 
to the interests of which he devoted his energies until in 1896, when 
he began dairying and farming on nine hundred acres of his fath- 
er's land near Visalia. He soon built up a large business which 
brought him good yearly profit and he had at one time one hundred 
registered Holstein cows, four or five hundred hogs, and one hundred 
acres of prunes and peaches. His fruit was killed by a flood a few 
years ago. At this time his ranch consists of three hundred and fifty 
acres, one hundred and fifty acres of which he has planted to alfalfa. 
As has been seen his career has not been without its vicissitudes, but 
he has overcome all o])stacles and achieved success in the tyjiical 
California way, and while he has prospered he has publie-spiritedly 
promoted the welfare of the comnumity. In 1896 he married Miss 
.lenevieve Loraine, a native of New York, who has Iionie him a 
daughter whom they have named Bernice. 



DALLAS H. GRAY 

One of the few men represented in this work who were liorn on 
property which they now own is Dallas H. Gray, who made his ad- 
vent into the world in February, 1882, near Armona. Har\ey P. Gray, 



760 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

liis father, was born in Wa\Tae county, Pa., A\n\\ I'U, 1811, and came to 
California from Nebraska in the '50s. Before 1870 he came to Tulare 
county, before settlement had advanced to any considerable extent, 
and here homesteaded one hundred and sixty acres of land. He 
mined in Tuolumne and Placer counties and in 186.5 enlisted in the 
Federal army, serving until the close of the Civil war. It was in 
December, 1869, that he came to Tulare county and engaged in farm- 
ing, taking over one hundred and sixty acres on army scrip and made 
a home to which he moved and lived out his days, passing away June 
2, 1896. He was one of the pioneer raisin growers in the county. 
In 1879 he married Miss Emma C. Hurd, and they had two sons, 
Donly C. and Dallas H., the former living in Visalia. Harvey Gray 
was a man of public spirit and forceful character, and helloed to 
promote the Peoples, Last Chance and Lower Kings River ditches 
and improved the home ranch to splendid condition. 

Dallas Gray was educated at Armona and in the Hanford high 
school. After his graduation in 1903 he established a vineyard and 
orchard of eighty acres of the family estate, to which he has added 
by purchase from time to time. He now has ninety acres in vines, 
forty in orchard and ten in pasture. He is encountering . success, 
drying fruit of various kinds and packing raisins. His packing house, 
covering a ground space of 80x120 feet, has a storage capacity of four 
hundred tons. He has erected nearly all the buildings on his ]ilace 
except the ])acking house. His dairy of twenty llolstein cows is 
becoming well known. He has erected sanitary Imildiugs with con- 
crete floors, 45x64 feet, for dairy purposes, and a hay storage building 
with a ca])acity of one hundred tons, elevated on concrete piling. His 
dairy requires thirty-four acres of alfalfa. He has also sixty acres in 
the orange belt of Tulare county and has an interest in one hundred 
and sixty acres of timber land in ]\Iadera county. From sixty-seven 
acres of vines he took one hundred and sixty-eight tons of ])roduct in 
1910 and one hundred and tifty in 1912. He markets all his own 
produce in the East, selling direct to jobbers. On his ranch he has two 
three-room cottages and one five-room cottage for hired help. He has 
installed electric machinery and two electric motors and has a modern 
pumping a]>paratus. His chicken business dates from 1909. He 
I'aises thoroughbred AYhite Leghorns only, increasing from oite thou- 
sand to five thousand laying hens, and operates six incubators of a 
capacity of four hundred and eighty eggs each. All the eggs he sells 
are bought throughout the coast states for hatching, and to this 
interest he devotes three acres. He gives employment to from five 
to one hundred men in his various enterjirises, according to season. 
His l)rooder house is one hundred feet long, with capacity for two 
thousand chicks. His fireless brooders generate their own heat. The 
hens have sanitary drinking fountains. Mr. Gray advertises his 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 761 

cliieken business exteusively aud L-annot supply the demaud that he 
has created. 

In 1905 Mr. Gray married Miss Katie Biddle, daughter of S. E. 
Biddle of Ilanford, and tliey became the jsarents of a son, Dallas H., 
Jr., who was born February 4, 1913. Mr. Gray is a man of much 
public spirit, having at heart the interests of the community, gener- 
ously heljjful to all good work. 



FEANCIS MARION AINSWORTH 

In Missouri, in 1845, was born Francis Marion Ainsworth, and in 
1857, when he was about twelve years old, he participated with his 
parents and others in a memorable overland journey to California. 
They came with ox-teams and endured many hardships and braved 
many perils. Their tirst home in this state was in Mendocino county. 
There his father acquired land which he farmed and improved three 
years. Then, after living a little while at Santa Rosa and a short 
time at Sonoma, the family moved to Napa county, where they re- 
mained until 186-1. Stockton was the scene of the family's activities 
for some years and after that Modesto numbered its members in its 
l)()liulati()ii. At Modesto the father died in 1870; the mother had 
))assed away in 1863. It was from Modesto that Francis M. Ains 
worth came to the Mussel Slough district of old Tulare county, near 
Hanford. where he soon began ranching. He moved to his ]iresent 
location at Milo in 1876. He owns here two hundred and forty acres 
of land which he is o]3erating very jirofitably. It is remarkable to 
realize that Mr. Ainsworth, who at the age of sixty-seven years is 
enjoying sjilendid health and is giving personal attention to the 
conduct of his ranch as well as the duties of postmaster at Milo, was 
at one time a consiimptive in a most precarious condition, suffering 
from hemorrhages of the lungs. His cure may be attributed to his 
tremendous will power and the exceptional climate and he has 
every reason to count his blessings and be happy that he has sought 
this country as his place of residence. 

In 1872 Mr. Ainsworth married Nettie Braden, a native of Iowa, 
wiio bore him ten children, all native sons and daughters of Cali- 
fornia, four of whom have died. Royal Jasper Ainsworth married 
r'lara TTinkle and lives in Tulare county. The other survivors are 
named Chester O., Archie ^\.. Frances M., Lisle R. and Alden R. The 
parents of Mrs. Ainsworth moved to Kansas when she was about five 
years old and some two oi' three years later they came ovei'land to 
California, settling in Santa Clai-a county, whence they later removed 
to Stanislaus countv, and it was here that she first met lier future 



762 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

husband. She was the second chihl of a t'aniil\- of four chiklreu, one 
son and three daughters, born to her parents, the others being-. 
William Braden, of ^"entura couutN', Agues Richardson of Poi'terville, 
and Malissa, who died in Tulare county in 1878, Ijeing at that time the 
wife of S. "\V. Webb and leaving no children. Mr. Ainsworth's uncle, 
Davy Crockett, is a justice of the jieace at Ukiah, Mendocino ccninty. 
Col. Davy Crockett, the hero of the Alamo, was Mr. Ainsworth's 
great-uncle. His life of adventure, his devotion to the cause of lilierty 
and his tragic death for the freedom of Texas are all matters of 
history. Mr. Ainsworth is a man of public spirit and as a Democi-at 
he has been elected school trustee and in 1907 was appointed post- 
master at Milo, which responsible office he still fills with aliility and 
credit. 



M. E. WEDDLE 

In Virginia, M. E. Weddle, late of the Diuuba district of Tulare 
county, Cal., was born July 28, 1844. When he was ten years old he 
accompanied his parents to east Tennessee. In 1861, before he was 
seventeen years old, he enlisted in Company H, Second Ohio Cavalry, 
under Captain Chester, with which he served until in ISCVA. In June 
of that year he re-enlisted, and served until the end of the war and 
was mustered out at St. Louis, Mo., in 1865. He took part in sixty- 
three battles and skirmishes, some of his memorable experiences 
having been in the Wilderness campaign and at the battle of Cedar 
Creek. In 1865 his father had removed from Tennessee to Indiana. In 
Tennessee he had had his war experiences as well, having operated 
there a corn mill which was patronized by passing soldiers, sometimes, 
but not always, to the ju-ofit of its proprietor. 

At the close of the war young Weddle joined his father in 
Indiana, worked at ranching and at teaming and learned the car- 
penter's trade. He married Miss Lucy J. Newlon. They had six 
children: John C. married Mabel Day and has three children. Mary E. 
married Charles Snyder of Oregon and they have three children. 
George W. married and has four children. Hester married William 
Heine of San Jose, Cal., and they have a son and a daughter. Two 
have passed away. By his later nuirriage with Mary E. Robbins he 
had no children. She was the widow of David Alden Robbins of Iowa 
and had two children by her first marriage. Her maiden name was 
Mary E. Fulton and she was born in Westmoreland county, near 
Monongahela City, and is the daughter of Abraham and Rachel (New- 
lon) Fulton. 

Mr. Weddle came to Tulare countv in 1888. As far as the eye 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 76;: 



/Do 



could reach iu every directiou lay au expanse of wheat tields aud 
Diuuba had jnst been platted. He found plenty of work as a carpen- 
ter, and helped to erect the first building in the town for a store and 
real estate oliBce. He became owner of ten acres of land on Wilson 
avenue. Three and a lialf acres of it are under \ines, one acre is 
planted to trees. For a number of years he prospered as a house- 
mover. Politically Mr. Weddle supported Republican principles and 
was a member of the Grand Army of the Republic. He itassed away 
August 12, 1912. 



JAMES THOMAS BOONE 

In Missouri, Benton county, in 1862, James Thomas Boone was 
born. There he grew up and was educated. He began his active 
career as a clerk in a factory in St. Louis. "When he was twenty-one 
years old he came to California and not long after his arrival he 
located at Traver. For a time after he came to the state he was 
liookkeeper in connection with one of the old canal ]irojects which in 
their time promised to be influential factors in the commercial pros- 
perity of this then new country. In 1884 he bought land at Traver, on 
wliich he lived until 1895, when he moved to Orosi. After two years' 
residence there he located at Dinuba and in 1899 he bought forty acres 
near that place. He was the first man to build a home in Section 
Eight, and when he planted most of his forty acres in vines it was 
as a ]iioneer vineyardist. The land cost him $37.50 an acre and $6(10 
an acre would be a low price for it now. 

In 1887 Mr. Boone married Matilda Isabelle Blakemore, a native 
of Tulare county, and their five children are all living in Tulare comity. 
Roy B. Boone, prominent iu the drug business at Dinul)a, married 
Frances Williams. He is one of the few graduates in pharmacy 
who live in this part of the county. Guy H., who is prosjiering at 
Dinuba as a liveryman, married Ktliel Alford. Estella Jeanette is a 
graduate of the high school at Dinuba; William is a student in that 
school; and Clyde Thomas is attending the granuuar school. Thomas 
Jefferson Boone, father of James Thomas Boone, was a native of 
Kentucky and the woman he married was also a native of that state. 
William Bailey Blakemore, father of Mrs. Matilda Isaliello (Blake- 
more) Boone, was a native of Arkansas, who iu pioneer days made 
the overland journey to California with ox-teams. His daughter, who 
was born in Tulare county, recollects seeing much game on the ]ilains 
and in the woods round her home when she was young. 

A man of much public spirit, Mr. Boone is ready a1 all times to 
do anything in his ]iower for llie advancement of the public good and 



764 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

lias served his fellow townsmen iu the office of justice of the peace, 
making a record for just and wise decisions of which judges of many 
greater courts might well be proud. Mr. Boone was the first City 
Clerk after Dinulia was incorporated and served the first term. 



JONATHAN W. MAY 

It was in Mississi])pi, in the heart of the Old South, that Jonathan 
AV. May of Springville, CaL, first saw the light of day in 1836. When 
he was six years old he was taken by his parents to Texas, where he 
lived until 1870. Then, aged about thirty-four years, he came over- 
land by ox-team transportation to California, consuming nine months 
in making the journey, and settled at Pleasant Valley, Tulare county. 
When he came here there was no one living in the vicinity of his 
present home. He bought property at Springville and became the 
pioneer livery stable keeper there. At this time there is no other 
than his blacksmith and wood-working shop in the town. Meanwhile 
he has acciuired a moderate sized but profitable ranch. In his younger 
days he raised stock, but in the more modern period he has kept 
abreast of California agriculture and horticulture. 

In the Civil war Mr. May was a lieutenant in the Confederate 
army, and he once filled the office of deputy sheriff in Shackelford 
county, Texas. In 1868 he married John Ann Stanphill, a native of the 
Cherokee nation, and she bore him three children, the eldest of whom 
is dead, while the others are living in Tulare county. Mrs. May died 
in 1875 and in 1904 Mr. May married Mrs. Anna Brown. 

Wherever he has lived Mr. May has. since he was a very young- 
man, been interested in the growth and development of his conunuuity. 
In many ways he has demonstrated his public spirit since he came 
to' this county and no movement is made for the benefit of any large 
number of its citizens that does not have his hearty encouragement 
or co-operation. 



BENJAMIN J. FICKLE 

The earliest recollection of Benjamin J. Fickle is of having seen 
a team of horses fall down when he was only two years old. That 
happened back in Ohio, where he was born December 12, 18.32. a 
son of George and Margaret (Beckley) Fickle, natives respectively of 
Kentucky and of Pennsylvania and descended respectively from German 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 765 

aud fium Irish ancestors. George Fickle fought for America in the 
war of 1812 and his father was a Revolutionary soldier. 

In 1853 young Fickle crossed the plains to California and stoi)ijed at 
^'olcano, Amador county. He was of a party that came by way of the 
Sublett cut-off, most of whom turned back to find grass for their stock. 
He and others pressed forward on foot, and after a day's travel they 
came upon a train under connnand of Clark, who was leading it to the 
Nai)a valley. The young man found employment with the train at $18 
a month and board. After the party had crossed the Green river, he met 
a man named Hogan, whom he accom])anied to Volcano, helping with a 
drove of cattle until the animals ate too much grass aud died as a 
consequence. Then he was employed near Amador and in the vicinity of 
Court House Rock. While he was there, three women went out to see 
the rock aud were captured by Indians and were uever seen tliere again. 
Here he mined for a time at $3 a day until a passing stranger told liim 
he was not being iiaid enough, and for a time'he farmed at Nevada, then 
took up a homestead on the Tule river three miles Ijelow Porterville, 
to which he acquired title and which he subsequently sold for $2200, 
taking his pay in cattle which perished on the })laius for want of 
watei. Next he bought three hundred and twenty acres of railroad 
land, near the site of Hanford, which he sold in two or three years for 
$1000 and which is now well worth $20(* an acre. He no^^' owns forty 
acres, eighteen acres of which is vineyard land, five acres peach orchard, 
the remainder pasture. 

Politically Mr. Fickle is a Socialist. He affiliates with tlie (Miris 
tian church. As a citizen he is public-spiritedly helpful to all the 
interests of the community. He married Enmia Rutherford, a native 
of California and a daughter of jnoneers, and she has borne him eleven 
children : Jerome F. married Beatrice Craft and has two children. 
Alfred H. nmrried Katie Burch, a native of Missouri, who lias borne 
him three children. George M. married Lottie Turner, and they liave 
one son. Pearl F. married Charles Burch aud has borne li'iu three 
children. 0. Estella married Clem Moyer and has four childreu. Delia 
is the sixth child. Flossie F. married Albert Carver and has one son. 
The others are: G. Frank, Flora L., John H., and Belle, who married 
E. H. Hackett and who has two childreu, Elmer and Flora. 



SAMUEL DINELEY 

The late Samuel Dineley, born in Worcestershire, England, in 1829, 
died in Visalia, Tulare county, Cal., August 5, 1007. His mother dying 
when he was quite young, his father brouglit their childi-en to New 
York city, where later he took a second wife. After that some of the 



766 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

children went away and the family was in a manner broken up, but 
.Samuel remained in New Yoi-k city until he was twenty-five years old 
and then crossed the plains to California, where he engaged in mining 
and later in the mercantile business. 

About 1855 Mr. Dineley came to Visalia, where he lived out the 
remainder of his allotted years. He was the pioneer lime-maker in 
Tulare county and set up the first limekiln ever seen here. Later for 
some years he was a successful sheep-herder, and after his retire- 
ment from that business he long conducted a confectionery store on 
Main street, in Visalia. On April 2, 1861, Samuel Dineley was united in 
marriage with Charlotte E. Kellenberger, the ceremony taking place 
in the old Pasqual Bequette house. He took his bride to the home 
purchased from Nathaniel Vise in 1862, located at 417 North Locust 
street, which has since been the home of the family and is perhaps the 
oldest homestead continuously inhabited by one family in Visalia. There 
eleven children were born to this worthy couple, viz.: Mrs. E. O. 
Miller, Mrs. H. W. Kelsey, George, Mrs. George Vogle, Mrs. G. C. 
Lamberson, Mrs. Herbert Askiu, Mrs. Fannie Burroughs, deceased, 
Mrs. Eve Bliss, Clarence, Harry and Frank, also deceased. Mrs. 
Dineley was born in Washington and was a daughter of F. J. Kellen- 
berger, who brought his children to the Pacific Coast via the Isthmus 
of Panama in 1860. 



WILLIAM F. DEAN 

The well-known farmer, fruit-grower and educator, whose post- 
office address is Three Rivers, Tulare county, Cal., was born in 
Muskingum county, Ohio, in 1855, and when he was about four years 
old his parents removed to Iowa. A few years later the family moved 
down into Missouri. Thus young Dean was educated in both Iowa 
and Missouri. In the latter state he took the course at the State 
Normal School at Kirksville, and was awarded a state certificate as to 
his al)ility as a teacher, which gave him the privilege of teaching 
anywhere in Missouri. He taught there and in Illinois for some time, 
and in 1877 came to California and in that year and in 1878 taught in 
the public school at Poplar; later he taught two years more at that 
place. In California his abilities and his standing as an educator 
were I'ecognized by Governor Perkins, who conferred upon him a life 
diploma, a document having the same effect here as the state certificate 
in Missouri. His recollections of his early school at Po]ilar are inter- 
esting. There was a goodly number of pupils, but the attendance 
was somewhat irregular in bad weather, as some of them came from 
a considerable distance. He savs that some of the earlv school dis- 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 767 

tricts iu this part of the state were til'ty miles from side to side. The 
liouses of the settlers were widely scattered, each one practically 
isolated. 

About ten years after he came to the state, Mr. Dean home- 
steaded laud on the Kaweah river. By subsequent purchases he 
acquired a total of six hundred and fifty acres, on which he embarked 
in stock-raisiuii'. After disposiui;- of his cattle, he turned his atten- 
tion to fruit-growing, devoting himself chiefly to the production 
of apples. lie has fourteen acres of apple trees, nine acres of them 
l)eing winesaps wJiich bore for the first time in 1912. He now owns 
six hundred and thirty-two acres, a part of it given over to grazing, 
the remainder being set to fruit. 

Mr. Dean's father was Henry Dean, a native of Western Virginia, 
who settled in Ohio when he had reached middle age. His mother was 
born within the present borders of the state of West Virginia. They 
both ])assed away iu Missouri. In 1885, in California, Mr. Dean mar- 
ried Miss Etta B. Doyle, a native of Pennsylvania and a daughter of 
parents both of whom were born in that state. She died in 1886, 
leaving no children. 

When he came to this state, Mr. Dean expected to teach here a few 
years and go l)ack East, but the longer he remained the less inclination 
had he to return to the old climate and the old en\iroument. Now he 
is a loyal Califoi-nian who expects to die under the sunny sky tliat 
kee])s flowers lilooming the year round and makes fortunes of golden 
grain and golden fruit that are more reliable and more valuable than 
the fortunes of real gold that lured men to this coast in the days 
l)efore and after the Civil war. In his political affiliations he is a 
Republican. In an official way, he has helped to enumerate the census 
of Tulare county and by election on the Reiuiblican ticket has served 
his fellow townsmen as a member of the local school board. 
There is no home interest that does not have his encouragement if 
encouragement is needed, and in many ways he has demonstrated 
a ])ublic si)irit that makes him useful and ])0]iular as a citizen. 



MARTIN DONAHUE 

Among the retired citizens of Tulare county, and one who lias 
fisiured prominentlv in the industrial circles tJiere. is ]\Iaitiu Donahue. 
flis |)arents wei-e l»orn in Ireland. This blacksmith, so long known by 
the people round Springville, Tulare county. Cal, was boin February 
17, 1828, at Oswego, N. Y. He there went to school, leai'ued his ti-ade 
trade, and lived until he was thirty-two years old. In 1862 lie enlisted 
in the Federal ai'iiiy I'or tln-ec ycai's and sci-xcd until lionorablv dis- 



768 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

oliarged and mustered out at Raleigh, N. C, iu 18(55. After the war 
he went back to his trade, aud iu 1869 came to Califoruia. For some 
time after his arrival he was a prospector in the gold tields and 
later was employed at iiis trade aud otherwise. Iu 1887 he located in 
Tulare county, and about one year later, in 1888. he came to this 
county aud settled near Spriugville. He has divided his time between 
farmiug and blacksmithing and has prospered so well that he now 
owns three hundred aud twenty acres of good grain laud. He stopped 
working at his trade about two years ago, since when, excei)t for the 
attention that he has had to give his land interests, he has enjoyed 
a well earned rest. 

Politics has never strongly attracted ]\H-. Donahue aud he lias 
never been particularly active in political woi-k. Always deprecating 
partisanism, he has at no time iu his life yielded his allegiance to any 
political organization, but has held himself in i-eadiness at all times 
to supjiort such men and measures as in his belief jiromise most for 
the general good. To all measures for the benefit of the community 
he has always been generously helpful in a truly public-spirited way. 



JAMES AV. FINE 

The death of James W. Fine, which occurred at Piano, t'al.. 
January 12, 1900, removed from his comnmnity one of the old and 
well-known pioneers of California and ended the activities of a well- 
spent and splendid life, full of energy aud unswerving i)erseverance. 
He was the son of John Fine, a native of Missouri, who died in 1868, at 
the age of seventy-two; he followed farming during his active years 
and In-ought his family to California in 18.37, his death takiusi' jilace 
at Woodville. The Fine family are well-founded, James ^\. Fine 
being of German extraction on his mother's side, while his paternal 
line is Irish. He was born Ajiril 13, 18"2o, iu Missouri, and started 
with his parents from Randolph county. Ark., iu May. 1857, to make 
the journey across the plains with ox-teams. There was a large jiarty 
at the start of the journey, ninety wagons being required, but at Salt 
Lake City many remained behind, and the remainder of the jiarty 
arrived in Califoruia in October. Mr. Fine first lived at San Andreas, 
Calaveras county, Cal., where he remained until 1860, his wife having 
been Imried there. Subsequently he came to Tulare county, and 
settling on the Kaweah river, at the elbow, he farmed and followed 
stockraising on rented land, but finally he made his way to the Por- 
terville section aud liuying six hundred and forty acres of land, 
remained there until upon selling out to Daniel Abbott, he retired 
from active life. His last days were spent with his sou, Robert R.. and 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 769 

he passed away at Piano January 12, litOU, at the age of seventy-six 
years and nine niontlis. 

Mr. Fine was married December 7, 1848, to Martha Jane Warner, 
l)orn September 13, 18:51, in Arkansas. She passed away January 12. 
1858, a short time after arriving in California. To their union five 
children were born: Mary Ann, born October 28, 1849, married S. B. 
King and has six sons now living, one daughter and two sons having 
passed away. Her sons are, John T. residing in Watsonville, George 
G. in Salinas, S. Frank in Merced, Charles W. in Porterville, William 
W. in Modesto and Daniel B. in Stockton. Mr. King was born in 
Kentucky and was reared in Missouri. Their marriage occurred 
in 1864, in California, and Mrs. King makes her home in Porterville, 
where in 1900 she ])urchased her home place. The second child born 
to Mr. and Mrs. Fine was Steven, who was born April 24, 1851, and 
now resides near Salinas. Robert R., born September 12, 1853, also 
resides at Salinas. Frances E., born April 26, 1855, is Mrs. Daniel 
Abbott, of Porterville. William A. was born Ajtril 2, 1857, and lives 
in Hanford. 



LEVI MITCHELL 

In the passing of Levi Mitchell, in 1885, Tulare county lost one 
of its oldest and most conspicuous pioneers. He was born in 1821 and 
was a child when brought to California. He married Miss Anna 
Stargarth, a native of Germany, who came to California with her 
aunt and located in Stockton in 1863, three years and a half before 
their marriage. After their marriage they located at White River, 
Tulare county, where Mr. Mitchell bought a store, and there they 
lived nineteen years and saw the place grow from vacant land to a 
thriving town. Miners and Indians were the only inhabitants, and 
for three years after they came Mrs. Mitchell was the only white 
woman tliere. Her husliaud l)uilt the hotel and schoolhouse and jirac- 
tically all the buildings there. He was a comparatively wealthy man 
when he came, and his fortunes iinproved. Twenty-two years after he 
died his wife moved to Ducor, where her son conducted a hotel, the 
Mitchell House. She remembers Porterville when it was a small clus- 
ter of houses; she saw the cattlemen supersede the Indians, as one of 
the early steps in the march of jirogress under which (\ilifornia has 
been transformed. Her husband bought mines and grubstaked miners 
and was in a general way ready for any s]ieculation that i)romised 
good returns. Genial, friendly and naturally helpful, he was popular 
with all who knew him and to the end of his days was honored as 
one of Ihe i)ioneers who blazed the way for the civilization of a later 

44 



770 TULARE AND KINGS COl'XTIES 

day. He and his brother owned the first .store in Visalia. Fraternally 
he was an Odd Fellow and did much for the l)enefit of his order. 

Born in 1842, Mrs. Mitchell was considerably younger than her 
husband. She bore him eight children, four of whom are living. Her 
son Joseph is managing a hotel at Hot Springs, C'al. Michael married 
Del)orah Samuels, a native of California, and has children named 
Annie and Lee, aged respectively six and five years. Jacob is living at 
Hot Springs, Cal. Herman is employed at a bank at Visalia. All 
of Mrs. Mitchell's children were born at AVhite River and are by 
birth-right native sous and daughters of California. Joseph and 
Michael are both Masons. Michael Mitchell fills the offices of justice 
of the peace and notary public and is secretary of the Ducor Chamber 
of Commerce and of the Ducor Realty Company. 



DAVID GAMBLE 

Formerly a trustee of the City of Hanford, Kings county, Cal., 
and member of its board of education. David Gamble is at the same 
time one of the leading contractors and builders of Central California, 
a man of enterprise and public spirit who would be a credit to the 
citizenship of any munici])ality. Mr. Gamble was born in Chester 
county, Pa., September 15, 1852, and grew to manhood in Philadelphia, 
where he gained a practical knowledge of contracting and building. 
When he decided to come west he planned the structure of his future 
success as carefully as he would plan a building of today. As the 
foundation must be first in the building, so the location must be first 
in his Imsiness career. He prospected, with eyes and ears both alert, 
through Nevada, New Mexico and Arizona and then into California. 

In 1878 Mr. Gamble arrived in Hanford. He found employment 
at his trade and worked at it diligently, saving his money, until in 
1886, when he became the ])ioueer contractor and builder in this city. 
Many of tlie buildings erected by him in the years immediately fol- 
lowing have been destroyed. Among the blocks of his erecting in 
the central jiart of the city which are standing today are the Baker, 
Malone and Manasse l)uildings, the court house — of which he did the 
woodwork — the Hill and Robinson buildings, the offices of the Hanford 
Water Works Company, the Bernstein block and the high school build- 
ing. One of his larger buildings is the hotel at Traver. The following- 
residences in Hanford are momnuents to his artistic skill and business 
enteri»rise: Goldberg's, Daniel Finn's, Kuntz's, F. A. Dodge's, Bern- 
stein's, Wesebaum's, Kiljiatrick's. Among those he has built in the 
country round about Hanford are D. Bassett's, H. E. Wright's, S. L. 
Brown's and the Ralestock home. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 771 

For twelve years Mr. Gamble has beeu a member of the board of 
education of Plauford and in 1908 he was elected city trustee. Frater- 
nally he affiliates with the Woodmen of the World and the Knights of 
Pythias. He married, in 1886, Miss Margaret A. Raisch, a native of 
Kansas, and they have foui- children : Katherine, a teacher in the 
Hanford grammar school; Edith; Florence, a student at Stanford 
Universitv ; and Raymond. 



C. A. ELSTER 

One of the most vahicd and industrious workers for the jaublic 
welfare in Springville and one to whom is due much ]iraise for his 
untiring efforts and generous aid in promoting the many enteri)rises 
with wliich he has been identified is C. A. Elster, who was born in 
Grass Valley, Nevada county. Cal., in 1862, and is now one of tlie lead- 
ing business men and landowners in the comnmnity. He is a son of 
Alonzo Elster, who came to Nevada county in 1858 and became well- 
known through his activity in running a block mill at Grass Valley, 
which he built about 1861. He was born in New York and died in 
California in June, 1888. He had come to Tulare county in 1866 and 
engaged in freighting from Stockton and Banta to Visalia before the 
advent of the Southern Pacific Railroad. He hauled the first fire 
engine ever used in the city of Visalia and he also ran the Overland 
livery stable at Visalia in the early seventies. 

When he was three years old, C. A. Elster 's parents came to Tu- 
lare county, where he has since lived. He was educated here in the 
l)u1)lic schools and took fundamental lessons in ranching and in busi- 
ness under his father's instruction. He began to acquire land by buy- 
ing a chiim before he was twenty-one years old, and by later purchases 
he has lirought liis Jioldings uj) to about five lumdred acres. For a 
while he oiierated a sawmill, but lie later gave his attention to ranch- 
ing and to stofkraising, and has from time to time beeji active in lai-ge 
enterprises for the general good. He is known as the fatliei- of the 
Tulare Electric, Watei' and Power Com])any, the hist(H-y of which 
dates from 1908, and it was largely through his and the efforts of 
('. W. Hublis and C. H. Tlawley that valuable water rights were se- 
cured on the miildle foi'k of the Tnle river about two miles above 
Springville. which when developed will generate at its full capacity 
about twenty-seven hundred horse-power electric current, hi this con- 
nection Mr. Elster has lieen one of '^rnlaie county's juost active pro- 
moters. Desiring a road to Springville, he associated with Messrs. 
liubbs and Ilawlcy and other Tulai'e county men and pi-oposed an 
electric line which was duly incorporated under tlic name of the 



7T1 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Tulare Cuimty Tower Company, with capital stock of $1,UUU,UU0, 
wbieh consisted of ten thousand shares at $100 each. It was proposed 
to operate this road by means of electric power and to run from Tu- 
lare to Jjindsay, from there to Strathmore and from Strathniore to 
Springville. Mr. Elster supplied the necessary money for the prelimi- 
nary survey, right of way, etc., and the Southern Pacific Railroad, 
observing their preparations, immediately built their branch line 
from Porterville to Spi'iugville, and thus Springville secured its rail- 
road, and it has been entirely due to the work and enterprise of Mr. 
roister that this has been accomj^lished. 

Mr. Elster in 191 li completed a two-story brick Iniilding, 48x60 
feet, the cost of which was $12,000. He owns a comfortable residence 
in Springville and has an olive nursery and orchard, and he is today 
one of the largest taxpayers in the city. 

In 1887 Mr. Elster married Miss Eva Hubbs, who bore him a son. 
Irvy Elster, who is now a member of his father's household. Mrs. 
Elster died in 1890 and in 1895 Mr. Elster married Miss Minnie Hubbs, 
by whom he had a daughter, Lora, who died when she was thirteen 
vears old. 



LOUIS BEQUETTE 

in the state of Wisconsin occurred the birth of Louis Bequette, 
stocknuvn and orange grower, one of the citizens of note in 
the vicinity of Lemon Cove, Tulare county, Cal. He was a child 
of three years when his parents came, with four teams, overland to 
California. The family located in Sierra county and remained tiiere 
five years, the father working in the mines. Their next halt was one 
of two years in Yolo coimty, whence they moved to Tulare county, 
within the hospitable borders of which the immediate subject of this 
article has had a home ever since. 

As a young man Mr. Bequette worked on ranches and helpeil licid 
cattle, and he has never been able to give up such em]iloyment in all 
the yeai's that have ensued. In 1872 he married Miss Mary p]liza 
Davis, of Stanislaus county, Cal., whose father, Harvey Davis, was a 
pioneer of 1849. Their three children were: Irving Bequette, who was 
born in Tulare county in 1874 and died in 1909. in his thirty-sixth 
year; C. L. Bequette died in 1911, leaving three children; Leonard 
Bequette, born in 1877, is married and is in the stocTv business in this 
county. 

When Mr. i^)equette took up the burden of life on his own account 
he \entured a little at first with stock. There came a time when 
his operations in that line were very considerable and made him widely 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 773 

kiKiwii. His first tract of laiul was one of one liimdred and sixty acres, 
and today he is tiie owner of twelve hundred acres, with fifteen acres 
in corn, five acres in oranges, and the remainder in ci'ops, range and 
alfalfa. His home is one of the most comfortable in his neighborhood 
and his ranch is fitted nj) witli every improvement and appliance 
necessary to its successful operation. He takes an intelligent and 
patriotic interest in the public affairs of tlie county, state and nation 
and res|)()nds readily and generously to all calls for aid in the advance- 
ment of his communitv. 



J. CAEL THAYER 

The architect is able to show forth his good works as no other 
man, except, perhaps, the editor; though the architect's exhibit is 
permanent as any human creation, the editor's comes into being today 
and is gone tomorrow. Only in musty and dusty files, half liiddeu 
in a dark corner of some library, is the editor's record available after 
he has himself ])assed away, but out in the sunshine the work of the 
architect has its place in its own chapter of the history of the men 
who have lived and builded — on Earth's great open page, where men 
and the sons of men may see and read. So is the record of the jiro- 
fessional achievements of J. Carl Thayer spread before those of this 
generation and of generations to come, everywhere in the business 
district and in the residence districts of Visalia, Tulare county, Cal. 

In Lewis county, N. Y., Mr. Thayer was born. He was educated 
in the Booneville (N. Y.) High School, at Cornell University and at 
Syracuse University, graduating with the degree of C. E. and other 
professional degrees, after liaving pursued a collegiate course in archi- 
tecture. The first six years of his professional career were jiassed in 
Pittsburg, Pa. Then, after two years in New York City, he came 
to California and located at Visalia for the practice of his ]irofession. 
Here his success has been commensurate with his abilities and his 
personal popularity. He has drawn plans for the following mentioned 
buildings, among others: The R. A. Little residence, the Episcopal 
church, the Levey building, the Willows district school, the C. W. 
Berry residence, the A. D. Wilson residence, the George Baker build- 
ing, the J. E. Richardson i-esidence, the C. B. Moffatt residence, the 
N. II. Grove residence, the Presbyterian church, the Visalia club, the 
L. Lueier residence, the theater block erected by E. 0. Miller at 
rianford, the Ivomoore grammar school building, wliich cost $40,000; 
the Methodist church at Lindsay, the Second National Bank building 
at Lindsay, L. L. Brown's store block in Exeter, the store building of 
Frank Mixter at Exeter, the store block of George Tinker at Lindsav 



774 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

and the store Imildiug of Tinker «S: Smith iu tlie last-named town. 
Considering the comparatively recent date of his advent in \"isalia. 
it will be seen tliat he has been very snccessful in a i)rofessional way. 
It should be noted that he is not merely an artistic designer, but is at 
the same time a practical designer, all his buildings being admirably 
calculated for the uses to which they were to be put and all giving the 
best of satisfaction in actual use. 

It was in 1905 that Mr. Thayer came to California. He married 
Miss Mary Morrell, a native of the state. As a citizen he is public- 
spiritedly helpful to all important interests of the couuuunity. Jan- 
uary 1, 1912, he removed to Fresno, where he is a member of the firm 
of Thayer, Parker & Kenyon, 348-9 Forsyth building. 



LOUIS LEE THOMAS 

The story of the self-made man is always interesting and it is 
always instructive. As such this brief account of the successful career 
of Louis Lee Thomas of Exeter, Cal.. should be of service to some of 
the younger readers of this volume. Mr. Thomas was born in Posey 
county, Ind., in 1868. John Thomas, his father, was born in that state 
in 1838 and died in Missouri iu 1904, and his mother also was a native 
of Indiana. When Louis was nine years old he was taken by his fam- 
ily to northern Missouri, where he grew to manhood and obtained 
such education as was afforded him in the ])ul)lie schools near his 
home. While he was yet a young man he went to the state of Wash- 
ington and secured emjiloymeut at farm work and remained there 
about fifteen years. Coming to California, he settled on the eighty- 
acre ranch on which he now lives. The place was well imjiroved and 
he later sold all of it Init thirty-six acres. Of this, twenty acres is 
planted to orange trees, which are now in full bearing, fourteen acres 
is in alfalfa and one acre is devoted to nursery stock. Mr. Thomas 
came to Tulare county with very little cajjital, but his industry, econ- 
omy and good judgment have made him the owner of one of the best 
homestead projjerties in his ^'ieinity. 

In 1895 Mr. Thomas married Miss Grace Akers, a native of 
Decatur county, Iowa, who had gone with her parents to Oregon when 
she was seven years old. Her father, a native of Indiana, and her 
mother, a native of Iowa, are both living. P^raternally Mr. Thomas 
affiliates with the Woodmen of the World. While he has well defined 
ideas upon all questions of public moment, he has never been aggres- 
.sive in political work, nor has he asked or accepted public office. He 
favors anything which ]n-omises to advance the welfare of tlie county 
and the country at large, and never fails to respond ]M-om)itly au'l 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 



I (0 



i^'enerously to any legitimate demand upou his i)uljlic spirit. As a 
farmer and fruit grower he has been successful beyond many whose 
o])[)()rtunities and advantages have surpassed his. In 1911 he sold 
fifteen hundred boxes of oranges and in 1912 he raised two thousand 
boxes of oranges from twenty acres of five-year-old trees. His laud 
will produce six crops of alfalfa each year, aggregating nine tons 
to the acre. The place is i)rovided with an up-to-date water |)lant, and 
he spares no pains or expense to add to the value and productiveness 
of his property. 



WILLIAM FREDERICK HEUSEL 

At Kalamazoo, Mich., William Frederick Heusel was born August 
n, 1859. He was reared and educated in that city until he was ten 
years of age, when the family moved to Sturgis and that was his home 
until 1879. After that he lived two years in Illinois and several years 
in Kansas and from the Sunflower State came to California in 1891, 
locating in Hanford, Kings county. He bought )iroi>ei-ty in that city 
and worked there at plumbing and in season was a foreman in the 
Del Monte Packing House. Thus he was employed until 1900, when 
he bought twenty acres of land a quarter of a mile north of the city. 
It was entireh- unimproved, Init now he has it planted to orchard 
and vineyard. He now has nine acres of growing vines and about seven 
acres producing fine ])eaches and apricots. He was one of the first 
to settle on this sub-division. He has given special attention to poul- 
try, raising fine chickens and ducks. His chickens are mostly thor- 
ouglibred butf and silver Wyandottes and Buff Orpingtons, his ducks 
are Indian Runners and Pekins. He has imported thoroughbred stock 
from the east for breeding purposes and hatches about five hundred 
ducks and as many chickens each year. At the state fair at Sacra- 
mento he has presented exhibits for four years and at local fairs 
throughout tlie state from time to time and has taken numerous i)rizes 
of many kinds. 

July i;J, 1882, Mr. Heusel married Maiy L. O'Brien and they have 
five daughters: Jessie is the wife of W. L. Peers, a native of Colorado, 
and they live at Oakland. Irma married Walter Tandrow of San 
Francisco. Nora, Jiei'uice and Muriel are members of their pai'cnts' 
household. In 1911 Mr. Heusel built a fine residence on his i)lace, and 
until that date lived in Hanfoid in the home he erected, 214 West 
Ivy street, which he still owns. He is identified with the Independent 
Order of Odd Fellows and i)assexl the chairs of the subordiiu\te lodge 
while a resident of Wichita, Kans. As a citizen he is helpfully public- 
spirited. 



776 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

FBEDERIC'K M. CARLISLE 

A progressive Tulare county farmer who has lived in the vicinity 
of Ducor since 1883 is Frederick M. Carlisle. He was born in Ten- 
nessee in 1852 and was a son of Wiley H. Carlisle, a native of North 
Carolina, who came to California in 1900 and died in 1906. Wlien 
he was thirty years old Mr. Carlisle left Tennessee and during the 
succeeding three years lived in Texas. On coming to Tulare county 
he homesteaded land which is included in his present holdings. His 
ranch, which is located about one mile from Ducor, is a five-hundred- 
acre property, well improved and under systematic cultivation. He 
raised grain until two years ago, but is now giving his attention to 
fruit. He long kept an average of forty head of horses and males, 
but has sold off much of his stock and in season operates a threshing 
machine. 

In 1876 Mr. Carlisle married Elizabeth Haley, a native of Mis- 
sissippi, whose father came to California and lived out his days here, 
her mother having died in Mississippi. Mrs. Carlisle has borne her 
husband nine children, six of whom are living: Joseph Node, born in 
Tennessee, is married and lives in Sacramento county. Eva M. (Mrs. 
Van Valkingburge) resides in Tulare county. Jessie H., who married 
A. F. Welsh, is living near Ducor. Viola E., who married Charles 
Hughes, lives in Ducor. Clarence M. and Clyde F. are in school. 

As school trustee and as clerk of the school board Mr. Carlisle 
has done efficient and praiseworthy service to the community. He 
has never sought ])ulilic office, but has well-defined opinions on all 
political questions, and his active interest entitles him to a place in 
the front rank of progressive citizens. Fraternally he affiliates witli 
the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. 



MANUEL B. LEMOS 

A native of one of the Azores, Manuel B. Lemos was born Decem- 
ber 11, 1860, in the home of a farmer. When he was twenty-two 
years old he came to the United States, and for sixteen months after 
his arrival was employed on a farm near Providence, B. I. Coming 
to California, he sto]iped a short time in San Francisco, then went to 
Fresno, where he worked six years on a ranch. The succeeding two 
years he passed in the sheep business, which in his hands was so ex- 
tensive that at one time he and his partner. Manuel Silva (rularte, 
had fourteen hundred sheep. Selling his interest in this venture, he 
did ranch work again for a while, then with a partner he handled 



TULARE AND LvINGS COUNTIES 777 

sheep for eleven years. By this time he had done so well financially 
that he was able to take a trip to the land of his birth. 

Eeturning to Hanford in 1898 Mr. Lemos bought the forty-acre 
ranch which is now his home property, two miles north of the city. 
All the improvements on the farm, including his comfortable house, 
he has put on since then. In 1905 he bought forty acres adjoining 
his first purchase of his brother, John B. Lemos. He has eight acres 
in vine and twelve in orchard, and the remainder of his land, except 
what he devotes to general farming, is under alfalfa. His principal 
business is the raising of hogs and sheep, but he breeds horses and 
cows for use on his place. 

In September, 1896, Mr. Lemos married Maria Clara Cardoza in 
Hanford, and she has borne him ten children. Those living are: John, 
Bento, P^'rauk, Andrea, Manuel, Mary, Joseph and Tony, the first- 
mentioned four being students in the public school. Manuel, the first 
born, dietl aged eight years, and Bento died aged fifteen months. 
Mr. Lemos affiliates with the I. D. E. S., of the interests of which 
society he is a liberal sui^porter. Though of foreign birth, he is a 
loyal American and his public spirit has impelled him to do much for 
the general benefit of his community. 



PERRY C. PHILLIPS 

A pioneer of his section of the county of Kings that was last 
partitioned from Fresno county, as well as one of the successful men 
who are now residents of the county, is Perry C. Phillips, who was 
•born on April 7, 1838, in Gibson county, Ind. His schooling was 
limited to a brief attendance at the common schools in the vicinity of 
Ills home and lie early gained experience in farming as it was carried 
on there. In 1854 he crossed the plains with ox-teams and located at 
Grizzly Hill, Nevada county, engaging in mining for a time. In 1860 
he came to the San Joaquin valley and settled in Fresno county, 
locating on his present home place on October 23 of that year, ^"isalia, 
twenty-five miles distant, was the jirincipal trading jijace. He first 
bought eighty acres of land upon which is now located his Jiome, and 
by subsequent ])urcliases increased his holdings until he is now the 
owner of about four thousand acres. Nearly all of this is fertile 
soil ; twenty aci'es are now in fruit, the balance in alfalfa and grain 
for general fai'ining purposes, and he makes a specialty of raising 
liogs. 

In the early days of the irrigation movement Mr. Phillips became 
prominent iind was one of the men of foresight who saw that by the 
construction of ditches to carry the water from the river a large area 



778 TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

of unproductive laud could be converted into one of tlie world's garden 
spots. How well he aud bis associates planned the jiistory of this 
whole region testifies. He was for a year a director of the People's 
Ditch Company, and as a citizen he has ever bad in view the greatest 
good to the greatest number, firm in the belief that the prosperity 
of one is the prosperity of all, and he has been ready at all times to 
respond to any call on behalf of the uplift aud development of the 
community. 

Mr. Phillips was united in marriage April 21), 1860, at Vacaville, 
Solano county, with Elizabeth Hildebrand, born in Shelby county, 
Ind., Octol)er 22, 1840. She came to California in 1853 with her par- 
ents, who settled first in Sierra county and later lived at Grizzly Hill, 
where she first met Mr. Phillips. After their marriage they came 
that fall to Fresno county aud settled on their present home place. 
Tliey had eight children: Floreuce E., wife of E. D. Mortou; Martlia 
I., wife of W. D. Runyon ; Carrie W., the wife of L. L. Lowe ; Ada B. ; 
Dora E., deceased; George H.; Robert H., aud Oscar L., all born, 
reared and educated iu central California. Mr. aud Mrs. Philli))s 
are the last of the pioneers in this section of the county. 



W. C. MACFARLANE 

A native of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, W. C. Macfarlane was born 
June 3, 1868, and now is proprietor of the Richland Egg Raucli. at 
Hauford, Kings county, Cal. He went to Chicago when a lad and 
learned the printer's trade aud fiually engaged iu business on his own 
account. He came to Hanford from Chicago in 1886 and for a time 
worked at his trade iu this vicinity. His second claim to distinction is 
his prominence iu the Benevoleut and Protective Order of Elks. In 
the fall of 1911 he organized the lodge at Hanford and sei-ved as its 
Esteemed Leading Knight. February 16, 1891, he married Miss ^Mary 
Sevier, of Visalia, who has a son, Harry C. Macfarlane. 

Writing, two or three years ago, of the begiuuing of his egg 
enterprise, Mr. Macfarlane said: "About eighteen years ago I traded 
a scrub calf for three dozen scrub hens, and the first month they netted 
me $15. That caused me to 'sit up and take notice.' I then jnir- 
chased a few settings of Brown Leghorn eggs aud raised that breed 
for a few years; but finally discarded them for the Wliite Leghorns, 
as they are a larger bird, lay larger eggs and as pullets get to layiuLi 
a marketable sized e^g much sooner than tlieir Itrown sisters." His 
original "White Leghorns were "bred to lay," 1)ut he improved the 
strain by the use of trap-nests, aud constant work and breeding pro- 
duced birds that laid as many as two hundred and twenty-seven eggs 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 779 

iu a year. Hens showiug a record approaehiug this were yarded for 
breeding. Until five or six years ago he never offered or advertised 
eggs or birds for sale, and even now will not sell a female from the 
two hundred and twenty-seven stock, but is in the market with male 
birds and eggs, lie confined his Itreeding to hens laying one hundred 
and ninety-two to two hundred and twenty-seven eggs a year and has 
increased his size of birds and eggs so that they are larger and more 
vigorous than the average Leghorn. Pullets from the high-grade 
layers were laying when fifteen weeks old and pullets from the one 
hundred and ninety-two egg strain were laying two weeks later. 

The Richland Egg Ranch, four miles northwest of Hanford, com- 
prises ten acres, its soil is good and it is watered by the People's 
Ditch. Mr. Macfarlane improved the place by building a small house 
and soon afterward planted part of his original five acres to peaches 
and sowed the remainder to alfalfa. When he was well started in 
the poultry business, he named the place the Richland Egg Ranch. 
A practical man of mechanical mind, he has done much of his own 
building and the ranch shows care and the painstaking work of a prac- 
tical owner. The Iniildings are simple in construction, Imt neat and 
attractive. Under the sign bearing the name of the ]:)lace stands the 
brooder, a building with a ground area of thirty-six by one hundred 
and twelve feet, which houses about twenty-five hundred pure bred 
White Leghorn chicks from a few days to a few weeks old. The 
brooder is fitted with thirty-two runs and is heated with nine gas 
heaters by which the temperature is kept at ninety degrees for the 
younger chicks down to seventy degrees for the older ones, according 
to season. Mr. Macfarlane averages a loss of but five ])er cent, leav- 
ing ninety-five per cent for successful breeding and maturing, notwith- 
standing many scientific poultrymen have a loss of fifty per cent. 
The incubators turn out fully ninety-four j^er cent of the fertile eggs 
and Mr. Macfarlane is al)le to keep the chicks alive and growing after 
they come out of the incubators. His brooders are devised on a plan 
of his own, adopted after he had visited all the jirincipal poultry 
farms of the state, and the part under the mother Iioards is cleaned 
daily, the runways twice a week. During the first ten days of their 
life the chicks are fed on Richland Ten Day Chick Feed, a preparation 
of Mr. Macfarlane 's own, and after ten days they are placed on a 
diet of meat, lilood, bone, bran and barley, a food that stinudates the 
body growth of the fowls so that the feather growth does not im])air 
its healtlifulness. Pure water is furnished to the chicks in stone foun- 
tains. When they are ready to leave the brooder they are jilaced in 
yards laid out in a peach orchard, which furnishes the necessary shade. 
Eacli yai'd is watered automatically by means of Jiipe and automatic 
fountains and there are no puddles or mud holes. 

Mr. Macfarlane breeds entirely for eggs. All the product from 



780 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

October to July he sells for hatching purposes, usually taking up six 
or seven hundred eggs daily. He ships hens and cocks as far east as 
New York and as far west as the Hawaiian Islands. He sells about 
twelve hundred liirds a year. Breeding only White Leghorns, he has 
taken tirst premium on his showings at the county fair for se\'eral 
years past. His four-story tank house, which cost $500, was built 
witli tlie profits of one season's broilers. His yards measiire one hun- 
(Iretl by one hundred and sixty-five feet and he never keeps more tliau 
eighty birds in one yard; and he never feeds any kind of food on the 
ground, but uses troughs for the soft food and hoppers for grain. 
Some information concerning the prices he receives will be of interest 
in this connection. For males from the one hundred and ninety-two 
egg strain he gets $3.50 to $5 each, age and appearance causing dif- 
ference in price. For males from the two hundred and twenty to the 
two hundred and twenty-seven egg strain, $7 each. For females, from 
April until sold, $1.25 each; these, being hens in their second season, 
are the best breeders, especially when mated with a two hundred and 
twenty-seven cockerel ; no females of the two hundred and twenty 
to two hundred and twenty-seven egg strain are sold. For eggs from 
selected trap-nested layers that pass the one hundred and ninety-two 
mark, $2 for fifteen, $7 for one hundred, $70 for one thousand, deliv- 
ered at the Hanford express office. He now offers settings from hens 
that have records of two hundred and twenty to two hundred and 
twenty-seven at $4 for fifteen, or $25 for one hundred. Having in- 
creased the number of birds of this class, he can supply settings in 
greater numbers than in previous seasons. 

On his ranch Mr. Macfarlane now has three thousand White Tjeg- 
horn chickens. In December, 1911, he received the largest order for 
eggs for hatching purposes ever given in California and at the high- 
est price — two hundred and twenty-five thousand eggs at seven cents 
an egg. This great order came from Petaluma, Cal. He ships eggs 
in lots of fifteen hundred and twelve, for which he receives $100 a 
lot. Mr. Macfarlane thanks his White Leghorns for a ranch worth 
$10,000, a business lilock in Hanford worth $30,000 and considerable 
other valuable property. All printing of catalogues is done by himself 
on his ranch, and he is now using his fifth press. 



PETER THOMSON 

Cattle raising has been the chief industry of Peter Thomson, 
who is numbered among the most ]irogressive citizens of his com- 
nmnity. Born in Sweden in 1844, he came to the United States when 
he was fifteen years old and arriving in New York he enlisted in the 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 781 

United States navy and served one year, at the end of wIul-Ii he re- 
ceived honorable discharge. After that until 1870 he was employed 
on vessels sailing to different parts of the world, Ijut in that \ear he 
landed at San Francisco, where he remained about twelve months. 
Then he worked in the redwood forests in Mendocino county for three 
years, later coming to Tulare county. In 1875 in partnership with L. 
W. Howeth, he went into the sheep business, and siuce then he has at 
times owned as many as three thousand sheep in a single band. He 
did not dispose of this interest until 1894. During the time of his 
connection with this enteri)rise he saw many of the ups and downs 
of sheep raising — of the sheep bought in 1875 most were lost. One 
of his largest purchases after that was in 1879, when he added two 
thousand to his flock. He now devotes his attention to cattle, of 
which he has about two hundred head. He owns six huudred and 
forty acres of land, which he judiciously devotes to various features 
of modern farming as it has lieeu developed in this part of California. 
He feels grateful to the country at large for what it has done for him 
and more especially to central California for the opportunities of 
which he has so wisely taken advantage, and as he has prospered he 
has always tried in an unselfish, loyal way to make some returns to 
the community for the l)enefit he has received from it. 

It was in 1889 that Mr. Thomson married Miss Eleanora Thaden, 
a native of Germany, who has borne him five children, four of whom 
are living. Lyla attends the State Normal at San Jose and will grad- 
uate in 1913. Ernest is at home and aiding in the conduct of the home 
farm. Beattie is a student in the Porterville high school. Olga at- 
tends school at White River. George E. is deceased. 



HIRAM L. PARKER 

It was in that mother state of the Middle West, Ohio, that Hiram 
L. Parker was born May 25, 1849. He was taken to Iowa by his ]>ar- 
ents when two years of age and there he was reared to nianhooil and 
educated, and in 1870, when he was abont twenty-one years old, lie 
came to California and located in Yolo county, not far from Wood- 
land. Tliore for seventeen years he raised grain and stock with in- 
creasing success and gained a financial start. He came to llanfoi-d, 
Kings county, in 1887, and Iionglit eighty acres of land which is now 
included in his homestead. He planted 'ten acres of it to vinos in 1888 
and the rest of the ranch was devoted chiefly to grain and alfalfa 
In 1890 lie planted thirty-five acres to ])eaches, apricots and prunes, 
in the ))roportion of twenty-seven, five and three acres, respectively. 
Eventually he sold forty acres and bought eighty acres moi-e in the 



782 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

same section. Ut' the latter tract lifteen acres is iu alfalfa, the remain- 
der in fruit. He sold it in 11)12 to E. J. Hummel at $400 an acre. In 
1907 he bought twenty acres adjoining his homestead and planted it 
with peach trees. His last purchase was another twenty acres, which 
lies south of his homestead in the same section. It is now utilized 
for general farming, but he intends later on to devote it to fruit. His 
expenditures in fitting up his home ranch have been heavy, including 
the cost of buildings, fences, trees, machinery and appliances. His 
original house was destroyed by tire and he inmiediately l)uilt a new 
one on its site. 

Aside from his farming, Mr. Parkei- has some other important 
interests, having been associated with others in the production of oil 
in the Lost Hills district, the general development of which is now 
being promoted. He is a stockholder also iu the Lilian Oil Company. 

In 1909 Mr. Parker married Mrs. Ella (Harris) Eraser. By a 
former marriage he has children as follows: Mrs. Nellie Hummel; 
Mrs. Mettie Moorehouse; and A. C. Parker, of San Jose. Mrs. E. E. 
Brooks, of San Francisco; Mrs. Clarence Kemp, of Lakeport; and 
Bruce Eraser, of Lake county, are Mrs. Parker's children l)y her for- 
mer marriage. Mr. Parker's enterprise along the lines of private 
business is equaled only by his public-sjiirited helpfulness in all move- 
ments for the general good. 



A. J. SALLADAY 

In the Buckeye State, in 1854, was born A. J. Salladay, a promi- 
nent citizen of Tulare county and an enthusiastic promoter of the in- 
terests of Terrabella and its tributary territory. AVhen he was twelve 
years old he was taken to Iowa by his parents on their removal to that 
state, and there he remained eighteen years, until 1884, when he came 
to California and settled in Fresno county. After a residence of two 
years there he removed to Tulare county, within the borders of which 
he has since made his home. It was in Ohio and Iowa that he obtained 
his education. His father was a rancher and all through his boyhood 
and youth the son was his assistant. When he left Iowa in 1884 he 
took up the battle of life for himself,, buying forty acres of land in 
Fresno county, which he subsequently sold. In Tulare county he 
homesteaded one hundred and sixty acres, to which he added by sub 
sequent purchases until he owned a whole section, which he sold a 
few months ago for $42,000, it being good producing wheat land. 
There is food for thought in this brief statement of the success of a 
self-made man. It was dependent not alone on industry and j^erse- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 783 

verance, hut not a little on a i)rophetic foresight which took accoiuit 
of values past aud present and future. 

lu 1885 Mr. Salladay married Sophia Carr, a native of Iowa, 
and they have had four children, all of whom are living. Nita mar- 
ried J. B. Garver and lives at Terrabella. Sarah became the wife 
of Henry Owens and lives in the same neighborhood. Joe is un- 
married, and Carr is a boy of five years. Mrs. Salladay 's parents, 
natives of Ohio and Pennsylvania, are living in California. Mr. 
Salladay 's father, also of Ohio birth, died soon after his son came 
to Tulare county. The latter remembers the country then as only 
a boundless sheeji range, and he has watched and aided in its de- 
velopment until it has become famous as the citrus l)elt of Cali- 
fornia. AVhen he came here the people did not dream of this latter 
day prosperity based on irrigation, and farmers were subject to 
all the vicissitudes of the seasons. Patriotic and helpful to an 
unusual degree, Mr. Salladay is not an active politician and has 
never consented to accept any public otSce except as a member of 
the school board, the duties of which his interest in general educa- 
tion has impelled him to undertake. 



BYRON ALLEN 

This native son of California, of Tulare county and of Visalia 
was born October 10, 1868, was brought up by his stepfather, James 
W. Oakes, and after leaving school was associated with him in the 
cattle Imsiness. Later he went to Arizona, New Mexico and Old 
Mexico on a prospecting tour, then, returning to Visalia, he again 
engaged in the breeding of cattle and horses; for, after all he had 
seen, I'anching looked more promising than mining. Since the death 
of Mr. Oakes he has had the management of the interests left by 
the latter and is making a success that is notable among the many 
successes in his vicinity. With two hundred and eighty acres of 
land, he is nmking a specialty of the raising of fine blooded hoi-ses. 
Cattle also command his attention, he having a range of two thou- 
sand acres in the mountains and keeping year after year about two 
hundred and fifty head of beef cattle, a hundred and fifty hogs and 
forty turkeys. A feature of his home farm is a large family orchard, 
one of the most productive in the neighborhood. 

In 1!)n4- Mr. Allen married Miss Delia Carter, daughter of an 
eai-jy setlh'r in Tulare county. Fraternally he affiliates with the 
Eagles and the Woodmen. As a citizen he takes an intelligent inter- 
est in all questions of national or local significance and as a voter 
does his whole duty by helping to elect to office Ihe men who will best 



784 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

serve the interests of the people. His public spirit, many times tested, 
has never been found wanting either in spontaneity or in generosity, 
for he has near to his heart tlie ui)lift and prosperity of tho rom- 
munitv. 



CAPT. ROBERT M. ASKIN 

As citizen, soldier, artisan, merchant and official, Capt. Robert 
M. Askin of Visalia won prominence among his fellowmeu. He was 
born in Dublin, Ireland, April 10, 1838, and died at his home in 
Tulare county January 1, 1908. John Askin, his father, an English- 
man transplanted to the Emerald Isle, became a plumber under his 
father's instructiou and worked at his trade in Ireland as long as 
he lived. He was married in Ireland to Miss Sarah Sophia Shea, a 
Dublin girl, who bore him five children, of whom Robert M. was the 
third in order of birth, and of whom two sons and two daugliters 
grew to maturity. 

In November, 1852, Robert M., seeking fortune in a new land 
l)efore he was fifteen years old, crossed the Atlantic and joined an 
uncle at Trenton, Canada, where he gave about two years to learning 
the tinner's trade. From 1854 to 1856 he worked at his trade in 
Jefferson county, N. Y., whence he went to New York City at the 
request of another uncle. Three years later he was working at his 
trade in St. Louis, Mo., biit he soon went with a Mr. Crippen to Steel- 
ville, Crawford county, that state, where he established a tinsmith's 
shop, which he operated until in the fall of 1861. On Septemlier 6, 
1861, he became a member of Company E of the Phelps Regiment, with 
which he served six months, during which he witnessed the liattle of 
Pea Ridge. Receiving honorable discharge at the end of his tei'ui of 
enlistment, he re-enlisted in Company E, Thirty-second Missouri In- 
fantry, August 14, 1862. From a private he was promoted in the fol- 
lowing October to lieutenant, and April 14, 1864, he was connnissioned 
captain. He served under Grant until 1863 and afterward until the 
end of the war under Sherman. It is somewhat remarkable that while 
he participated gallantly in thirty-two engagements he never missed 
a roll-call or a meal with his company and received but one wound, a 
mere scratch by a ball while he was charging on a battery at Jones- 
boro, Ga. He was mustered out of the service July 18, 1865, returned 
to Steelville, Mo., and worked as a tinner and sold hardware. In 1870 
he moved to Cuba, Crawford county. Mo., and in 1878 to Salem, Dent 
county. Mo., where he dealt in hardware and house furnishing goods 
for twentv-one vears. From his voung manhood he was an ac^tive 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 785 

Republican, and for a tenu lie held the office of presiding justice of 
the county court and he served as postmaster of Salem by appointment 
of President Harrison. From the time of his arrival in California 
until his death he liad his residence and business headquarters at 
Visalia. 

Captain Askin married, February 22, 1866, Clara Alice Jameson, a 
native of Missouri, wlio bore him four children : Charles Robert and 
Mary Catherine are dead; William C. lives in Missouri; John Herbert 
was connected with liis father in business at Visalia and is still a resi- 
dent of that city. Mrs. Askin died at Cuba, Crawford county, Mo., 
Ajiril 12, 1876, and Captain Askin married (second) in that town 
Miss Frances Amelia Shephard, of New York liirth, and they liad 
ciiildren, Arthur Wesley, Adney Horace, Mervyn Leroy, Matie Ajuelia 
and Flora Dell. Captain Askin was a constituent memlier of the post 
of the Grand Army of the Republic at Salem, Mo., and on coming to 
Visalia transferred his membership to Gen. George Wright Post No. 
Ill, of that city. In religious affiliation he was an Episcopalian and 
the surviving members of his family are communicants of that church. 
At Salem he was active in the work of the Masonic lodge and com- 
mandery and in that of the Ancient Order of United Workmen. .Wher- 
ever he lived he was in a jniblic-sjiirited way devoted to the uplift of 
his commnnity, and in this i-espect liis son is following in his footsteps, 
giving genei'ous encouragement to every movement at ^^isalia foi' the 
good of any considerable class of the people. 



GEORGE BRIDGES 

California is a field peculiarly alluring to young men of states 
further east, who, having good health and good character, are deter- 
mined to prosjier by their own efforts. This is jiroven by a glance at 
the facts in the life thus far of George Bridges, a jirosj^erous farmer 
and dairyman near Visalia, Tulare county. Mr. Bridges was born in 
Morton county, lucL. iMarch 3, 1867, and there he attended the iniblic 
schools and gained a ]iractical kiutwlcdge of farming as it was then 
carried on in his vicinity. In 1884, when he was seventeen years old. 
he came to California. His oiiginal settlement here was at a point 
west of Visalia, and eventually he bought ten acres of land near the 
Shirk ranch, which he still owns, and where for nine years he grew 
alfalfa. Then he rented a [lart of the Frans ranch, forty acres, east 
of \"isalia. There he cultivated alfalfa and installed a dairy of thir- 
teen cows, besides raising some vegetables. The following year he 
rented the Smith ranch of three hundred and twenty acres and in- 
creased his daii'y to oiu> of twenty-five cows, giving attention to alfalfa 

45 



786 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

and devotiug au adequate portion of his land to pasturage. After 
living- there a year he moved to his present residence, two hundred and 
twenty-six acres of the old Patterson ranch, northeast of Visalia, 
which tract he has since operated under lease. At this time he has 
ninety-eight acres in alfalfa, owns one hundred head of hogs and beef 
cattle and has a dairy of fifty cows. Thus, from a small beginning 
and not under the most favoralile circumstances, he has developed a 
fine, growing business which stamps him as a man of ability and enter- 
prise and holds much promise for his future. 

In 1890 Mr. Bridges married Miss Mary F. Stokes, a native of 
Tulare county, where her father, Yaucy Stokes, was an early settler, 
and they have four children: Flora May, Stella I., wife of Roy Swit- 
zer, George M., and Zelda E. Mr. Bridges is a member of the Modern 
Woodmen of America, devoted to all its interests. He is a man of 
considerable public spirit, always ready to do his part for the advance- 
ment of any measure for the general good of his community. 



ARTHUR P. HUBBS 

It was in Porterville. Tulare county, Cal., that Arthur Preston 
Hulibs was born in 1870, a son of James Robert Hubbs. He was edu- 
cated in the schools of Porterville and in the Mountain View school, 
and in his youth assisted his father in the latter 's stock farming. The 
elder Hubbs came across the plains in 1840 with his father, making the 
journey with ox-teams, and later he and his father owned thousands 
of acres of land which they bought cheaply and sold while land was 
yet a drug on the market, and they operated extensively in stock 
while tlie stock Imsiness was only in its infancy. When Arthur Hulibs 
first saw the site of Porterville it was wild land without a building, 
and he remembers Springville when its condition was no less primi- 
tive. He has watched and assisted in the development of the country 
and observes its present prosperity with the just ]>ride of the pioneer. 
At one time he served the community with ability as constable, 
and he remembers that being a constable then was not the peaceable 
undertaking that it is today. In all the years of his residence here 
he has always been ready in a public-spirited way to assist any move- 
ment ]iro])Osed for the general good. Fraternally he affiliates with the 
Court of Honor, of which his wife also is a member. 

In 1895 Mr. Hubbs married Miss 011a Doty, a native daughter of 
California, and they have had three children. Del])ha, Gladvs and Law- 
rence. Delpha and Gladys are in school. Mrs. Hubbs' father was a 
pioneer in California and is still living in Tulare county, where he was 
long a stockman. So extensive were his operations in that line that 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 7?7 

he onee owned a iit'teeu huudred aud twenty acre stock range which 
he bought at two dollars an acre and sold later at six dollars. Some 
years ago he went into the. livery business and now he is the proprie- 
tor of an up-to-date stable at Springville, Cal., which is one of the 
best appointed and most profitable in this part of the coimtry. 



ISAAC T. IIALFORD 

On October 10, 1848, in Moniteau county, Mo., Isaac T. Halford 
was ])orn, the eldest of twelve children born to L. R. and Hester 
(Coale) Halford, both natives of Missouri. L. R. Halford was the 
son of Kentuckians and he passed away in Missouri, where also his 
wife died. In ISfiH the family moved to Henry county, Mo., and there 
Isaac T. Halford worked on a farm and attended school until he 
reached the age of eighteen years. Two years later he was in the 
cattle business in Texas, whence he returned to Henry county. Mo., 
to engage in the mercantile business in Coalesburg, and continued in 
it successfully until in 1885, when he sold out. In 1887 he came to 
California and located at Orange, in Orange county, remaining for 
two years, and tlien moved to Porterville, Tulare county, which has 
since been his home. Opening a general merchandise store, he con- 
ducted it for a while and later engaged in stock raising. After forty- 
two years of active business life he retired to enjoy a three years' rest, 
and December 27, 1912, with Stejdien D. Halford, his brother, he 
bought the grocery business conducted by Wilko Mentz, and they are 
now conducting the business under the firm name of Halford Bros. 
Mr. Halford has bought property in Porterville and im])roved it and 
has in different ways manifested a helpful interest in the town. While 
a citizen of Coalesburg, Henry county, Mo., he held the office of post- 
master seven years, and at another time he was a deputy sheriff. 
Though he has wielded a i)olitical influence in Tulare county, he has 
never consented to hold office. Fraternally he affiliates with the Inde- 
jiendent Order of Odd Fellows and the Encam]iment. He was a cliar- 
ter mem})ei- of his lodge and has for some time served as its secretai-y. 
Mrs: lialfoi'd is a Rebekah. When he began business in Porterville 
thei"e was not a hricic building in the town, aud his was tlie fdiirtli 
store in operation. 

In 1878 Mr. Ilalfnrd married Cornelia Holston, a native of 'Pen- 
nessee. They have no children, but they have an adojyted son, D. 
Wrinkle, born Deceinber 24, 1902, who has been a member of tlieii- 
family since he was three years old. Before her marriage Mrs. Hal- 
ford was a teacher in the Stat<' Normal school at Kirksville, Mo. 



788 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

JOSEPH WILLIAM HOMER 

Born in England, the late Joseph Wijliam Homer early settled 
in New York, whence, while yet a young man, he went to New Har- 
mony, Posey county, Ind. His father, Richard Homer, and other 
members of his family came .to America also and lived in Indiana, 
where Richard died. After that event Joseph William Homer went 
down the Ohio river and enlisted for service in the United States 
army for ser\ice in the Mexican war, in which he did duty as a soldier 
about a year. Returning to Indiana, he later came through Arkansas 
and Texas and thence west to Los Angeles, and soon engaged in stock 
raising at Visalia in partnership with his brother-in-law, Ira Van 
Gordon. Later he lived a mile north of Farmersville. with stock- 
raising as his principal occupation. When he first came to California 
the Indians were very troublesome, and he assisted in the construction 
of a fort for the protection of women and children. He was a pioneer 
also in the construction of irrigation ditches and was in one way or 
another connected with many important movements and enterprises. 
He was well educated, spoke the Spanish language fluently, and taught 
his own children before schools were established. He voted at the 
historic local election held under the oak tree. He continued to live 
at his home at Three Rivers until 1879, when his long and useful life 
came to an end. 

Mr. Homer married Miss Martha Balaam, a native of Kentucky. 
who bore him these children : Catherine R., S. Ellen, Truman J., Ed- 
ward B., Thomas and Anna M. Catherine R. married James S. Price, 
and they have a son, Charles, and a daughter. Alta Florence. S. Ellen 
married John Hambright, whose parents were among ('alifornia 
]Honeers, and they liave eight children. Truman J. married Alice 
Rice and they have a child, Carrol S. Edward B. married Anna 
Swank, and they have five daughters and live near Orange Heights. 
Thomas married Matilda Mehrten and they have two sons. Anna ^f. 
married Harvey Hodges, of Dinuba, and bore him one son. 

With Jackson Price, his father, James S. Price, then only about 
six months old, came overland from Kansas to California in 1863. 
Tjater the family removed to Oregon, whence the younger Price even- 
tually came to California, where he has won success as a dair^^nan 
and as a stock-raiser. He bought twenty acres of land at $200 an 
acre and has three and a half acres under trees and vines, the remain- 
der under alfalfa. He has recently st)ld seventy head of stock, but 
keeps an average of forty head and about one hundred head of Duroc 
hogs. Not long ago he sold a male pig for $15. His cattle are of the 
Holstein breed. Politically he is Republican and his wife is a Pro- 
gressive Republican. He very ably fills the office of postmaster at 
Orange Heights. He is an Odd Fellow, a Forester of America, a 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 789 

Woinliiiaii of America and a luember of the Order of Loyal Protection. 
Mrs. Price, formerly a memiier of the Women of Woodcraft, is identi- 
fied with Rel)ekah Lodge of San Tjiiis Obisjio coimty. 



S. C. KIMBALL 

A successful merchant and financier of Hanford who is well 
known here for his exceptional Imsiness ability and honorable meth- 
ods is S. C. Kimball, who was born in Barton, Yt, March 24, 1859. 
He was educated in the public schools and at the Eastman Business 
College at Poughkeepsie. N. Y. Meantime he early entered business 
life, and from the time he was seventeen until he was twenty-one 
years old he traveled through the New England states, buying wool 
in carload lots and establishing agencies for fertilizers. In this 
period he ojjened a general merchandise store at Albany, Vt., where 
he gained his first ex])erience as a merchant. In 1889 he went to 
Puyallup, Wash., and there sold drygoods for six years, then re- 
turned to "\"ermont for the benefit of his liealth. He opened a dry- 
goods store at Barton Landing and incidentally engaged in the flour, 
feed and grain trade to a large extent, having six agencies with one 
to five carloads of feed and grain on the track all the time during 
the shipi)ing season. Meanwhile he bought and conducted his grand- 
parents' old farm. Though he was doing well, he was longing for 
the west and he sold out his interests in Vermont and came to 
California, and by advice of wholesalers of his acquaintance, lo- 
cated, in 1903, in Hanford. Here he opened a drygoods store on 
the site of the ])resent city market, taking over the old Hutchins 
stock. His small initial business was the forerunner of greater 
things and in a year and a half he moved to his present site at 
the corner of Seventh and Douty streets, moving into the ground- 
floor story of the building he now occupies. His store space was 
125x35 feet; later he leased an adjoining building, acquiring an addi- 
tional space of 25x100 feet, and not long afterward added to his 
establishment the second floor of the original building. In October, 
1911, he Oldened two branch stores, one at Lemoore, the other at 
Exeter. In the first he sells drygoods and shoes, in the other dry- 
goods only. His sons, Raymond C, Hugh A. and H. C. Kimball, 
are associated with him in business. H. C. Kimball is secretary of 
the New York department store and manager of the Lemoore branch 
store. The stocks of the three stores embrace general drygoods, 
cloaks, suits, carpets, shoes and men's furnishings, tinware, glass- 
ware, agateware and stationery. 

In addition to his large department store. Mi-. Kimball is be- 



790 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

comiuy lar.yely iuterested iu baukiug tlirougliout Tulare aud Fresno 
counties. In the spring of 1910, associated with Chester Dowell, 
he organized the Lindsay National bank, of Lindsay, Cal., of which 
he was made the first president, and in February, 1911, he bought 
the First National bank of Exeter and was made president of that 
also. His sons are married and settled in Kings county, their 
financial interest in his business dating from June, 1911. Mr. Kim- 
ball is ]3resident of the First National bank of Exeter and the 
National bank of Oro.si, the latter being capitalized at $25,000 and 
o]5ening its doors in February, 1913. He is a director of the Fowler 
National bank at Fowler, Cal., capitalized at $50,000 which started 
its business also in February, 1913. He is largely interested in the 
Golden State's Security Co.. Inc., of Exeter, capitalized at $50,000, 
their holdings being practically all orange lands. This compan.v 
has a bright future and handles twenty and forty acre tracts, and 
as director of this corporation Mr. Kimliall is an active element. 

In 1908 Mr. Kimball bought the Dr. Holmes fruit ranch, a mile 
west of Hanford, which he has converted into a fine estate. Besides 
this twenty acres he bought twenty-tive acres near the city limits, 
all in orchard and vineyard. In 1912, with A. W. Quinn and two 
others, he bought nine hundred acres of orange land in the orange 
belt, four miles from Exeter, which they intend to improve. 



A. W. PHELPS 

Near Sheboygan Falls, Wis., A. W. Phelps, who lives north of 
Dinuba in Tulare county, Cal., was born June 24, 1862, a sou of Ben- 
jamin aud Matilda (Humes) Phelps, and lived there until he was nine 
years old, when he was taken by his parents to Missouri. There the 
family home was located directly across the road from that of the 
Samuels, mother aud stepfather of the James boys, famous in outlaw 
history of the west. 

The Phelpses, who were pioneers in Wisconsin, became pioneers in 
Oregon in 1875, settling near Salem and Silverton, in Marion county, 
where the family lived twenty-one years and where the father died, 
aged eighty-five. In 1896 A. W. Phel]is came to California and located 
in Tulare county. He leases ten acres belonging to Mrs. Latin and 
another tract of twenty acres, and has four acres and a half in peaches 
and three in Malaga vines. As a farmer, considering the extent of his 
operations, lie is achieving a marked success. 

Mr. Phelps' experience as a pioneer in several states was replete 
with interest. On one occasion in Tulare county he wandered from 
the road on his wav to a dance and came uiion two voung lions, and 



TULARE AND KINGS (XHTx^'TES 791 

wliile he was considering the advisal)ility oT captiiriiig Jiiid making 
pets of theai he was startled by beholding in the near vicinity a rtve- 
legged double-hoofed Jersey calf. How these strange animals came 
to be there or whether or not he took them home with him lie did not 
inform his interviewer. Perhaps he left them because he was more 
anxious to attend the dance than to begin the collection of a menagerie. 
In the early days he saw many dro\-es of elk and was successful in 
deer-stalking. 

In his politics Mr. Phelps is an independent Repul)Iicau. Frater- 
nally he affiliates with the Maccabees. He married in Kingsbui-g, 
Tulare county, Miss Emma Peterson, a native of Kansas, and they 
have children named Minnie, Grade and Eva. Minnie has jiassed 
through the local grammar school. 



BREWSTER S. GURNEE 

In any survey of the substantial enterprises of Hanford, Kings 
county, Cal., the Gurnee iilaning-mill is certain to attract attention. 
Its output in windows, doors, mouldings and bank tixtures aggre- 
gates $60,000 yearly. The guiding spirit of these enterprises is 
Brewster S. Gurnee, who came to Hanford from the city of Fresno 
in December, 1891. Born in Stony Point, Rockland comity, N. Y., 
May 26, 1859, a son of Walter F. B. Gurnee and a grandson of 
Mathew Gurnee, natives of the Empire state, he traces his ancestry 
to one of the Pilgrim fathers. Walter F. B. Gurnee, a farmer and 
a brick manufacturer, served the Federal cause in the Civil war 
as a private soldier sixty days, then was sent home because of ill 
health and died in his tifty-sixth yeai'. He married Mary M. Smith, 
also a native of New York state, who died at Rye, N. Y., at the 
age of seventy-six. 

In the public school near his l)oyhood home Brewster S. (Jurnee 
ol)tained such education as was availa])le to him. His first business 
ex])erience was in Washington, N. J., where he learned the organ 
maker's trade with the Beaty Organ company. Later he was em- 
liloyed in a piano factory at New York, but was constrained by his 
wife's failing health to give up Ills ))osition there and remove to 
California. His first location liere was at Fresno. After working 
in a ])laning-mill there for about a year, he became foreman in the 
large i)laning-mill of M. R. Madary, a jtosition which he filled four 
years, when he bouglit a half interest in the estalilishment. After 
two \ears of successful linsiiu'ss life, he sold his interest in the 
planing-mill, December, 1S!»1, and came to Ilant'oi'd, where he es- 
tablished himself in a ))i-os|K'rous manufacturing Inisiness. His sue- 



792 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

cess, however, was not achieved without discoiuagiug- reverses. Be- 
sides his iiiill i)i()])t'rty he early acquired a fruit farm near Han- 
ford, and during the ])auic of 189.3-94 he lost both mill and farm; 
but in 1899, on boi'rowed cai)ital, he again became owner of the 
same mill and has since operated it with profit. His first planing- 
mill in Hanford was a small affair covering a ground s])ace of fifty 
by sixty-five feet. His plant now consists of two buildings, one cov- 
ering a ground space of one hundred and twenty-five by one hundred 
and fifty feet, the other seventy-five by one hundred feet. The 
Gurnee mill is one of the best equipped in the lower San Joaquin 
valley and its manufactures are sold in all parts of California. It 
gives constant employment to thirty men. 

The Republican party has in Mr. Gurnee a staunch member, 
but he has persistently refused to accept public office. Fraternallv 
he affiliates with Hanford Lodge, No. 279, F. & A. M.; Hanford 
chapter. No. 74, R. A. M. ; the Hanford organizations of Woodmen 
of the World and Knights of Pythias; and the I^'resno lodge of the 
iJenevolent and Protective Order of Elks. Mr. Gurnee is no less 
popular in business and social circles than in these orders, and as 
a citizen he has never been found wanting in public spirit. He mar- 
ried Eugenia A. Van A'aler, a native of Stony Point, N. Y., and 
they have had five children, one of whom died in infancy. The 
survivors are Mary, Minnie, Candace and Adelia. Mary is the 
wife of F. M. Vincent, residing at Niles, Cal. Minnie is the wife 
of A. R. Schimmell, residing near Tulare. Candace is the wife of 
W. H. Wilbur, residing at Alpaugh, Cal. 



EUGENE A. LUCE 

The jiopulation of California is made up very largely of men 
from other states of the Uuion and ]iresents uiore distinct elements 
than almost any other state. Yet it is a melting-i)ot in which all 
immigrants are converted into out-and-out Californians. In local 
industries, from the railroad liuilder to the bank ]n-esident, the citi- 
zen of New York birth has shown excellent (jualities. One such 
is Eugene A. Luce, formerly a plumber at Yisalia, now a rancher 
on the Exeter road, east of that city, a self-inade man, who has 
won high repute in the community for all those qualities of mind 
and heart which make for good citizenshijj. Mr. Luce was born in 
Buffalo, N. Y., January 19. 1845, and when he was two years old 
his father died. He was reared and educated in his native state, 
and in the spring of 1870 came to California and opened a plumb- 
er's and tinsmith sho]) in Visalia. After a successful business there 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 79:5 

of tweuty years' (.huation. lio sold out his plant aud bought .a raUL-h 
of eighty acres near that city. It was set out to fruit trees which 
lie dug up to convert the place into a dairy ranch of fifty acres of 
alfalfa and thirty aci-es of wild feed. He is able to gather six crops 
of alfalfa each \ear without irrigation. A dairy of thirty cows 
is a feature of his enterprise and he keeps fifty hogs. 

In 1907 Mr. Luce married Mrs. Metcalf, a native of Iowa, who 
has two children: Herman and Odell Metcalf. Mary E. Luce is a 
child by a former wife. Mr. Luce affiliates with the Visalia Grange 
aud is a man of liberal ]mblic spirit. 



EDWIN F. HAET 

Many Missourians have come to California and have been per- 
fectly satisfied by their change of location. One such is Edwin F. 
Hart, of Farmersville, Tulare county. He was born in St. Charles, 
Mo., December 24, 1860, a sou of Amos and Sarah AV. (Logan) 
Hart, natives of Kentucky. He came to this state in 1882, when 
he was about twenty-two years old, and located in Tulare county. 
With his brother, he liought three hundred and fifty acres of land 
at Cottage, on the Mineral King road, where they engaged in hog 
raising. Three years later they sold the place and Mr. Hart bought 
his present farm of two hundred and forty acres near Farmersville, 
forty acres of which is in alfalfa, eight in peaches, ten in ]irunes 
and two in a family orchard. He does general farming aud has a 
dairy of twenty-five cows. He owns also a cattle range of one hun- 
dred and sixty acres on the Tule river, near Woodville. Fine draft 
horses are among the i)roducts of his farms and lie is i)art owner 
of an imported Percheron stallion. 

Farming and stock-raising do not command Mr. Hart's entire 
time so as to exclude other interests. His public spirit has led him 
from time to time to take part in movements for the general benefit 
of the community. He is iiresident of the Consolidated People's 
Ditch company and has been at the head of the cor]ioration since 
1894. The other officers are S. T. Pennybaker, vice-i>resi(l('nt ; Bank 
of Visalia, treasurer; J. C. Lever, secretary. The water used in the 
system under consideration comes from the Kaweah river. The 
ditch dug by the old <'()iii))any was merged with the new one in the 
consolidation and was the first in the county. It was begun with 
nine short ditches in 1852 and was known as the Swansou ditch. 
It was enlarged from time to time down to 1860, and in 18(i4 the 
Consolidated company took it over, including it in its present sys- 
tem of five miles of ditches with numerous laterals, each of ten to 



794 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

fifteen miles, making an aggregate of nearly one hundred miles. In 
the dry season of 1898 the company irrigated more than sixteen 
thousand acres of land. This enterprise is one of utmost local 
importance and, as has been seen, has comman(Jed the best efforts 
of leading citizens in all i^eriods of its history and now is in the 
hands of some of the best men in the county. 

Socially Mr. Hart is identified with the Woodmen of the World 
and the Fraternal Aid. He married Miss Martha E. Frans, the 
daughter of a Tulare county pioneer, February 2, 1887, and they have 
seven children : Sarah F., a teacher in the Farmersville public schools ; 
Charles E., who married Belle Hartsell; John H.; Rebecca E.; James 
v.; Homer S. ; Ruth E. Sarah F. and Rebecca E. were graduated 
from the San Francisco Normal School. Mr. Hart is recognized not 
only as one of the successful men of the county but also as one of the 
most public spirited of those who are leaders in affairs of general 
import. 



WILLIAM 11. BRALV 

In Missouri, in 18()2, was born William H. Braly, who now 
makes his home at Ducor, Tulare county. Cal. When he was three 
months old his parents made the journey l)y ox team to Oregon, 
and there he lived for eight years. Then coming to ("alifornia he 
settled in Alameda county, where he grew uj), finishing his studies 
and familiarizing himself with the details of farming. In 1886 he 
came to Tulare county and homesteaded one hundred and sixty 
acres of land that is a part of the Braly Brothers' ranch. 

The father of the Braly Brothers, Shadrach Braly. was a native 
of Missouri, and died in 1892. Their mother, who was l)orn in 
Kentucky, is living on the Braly homestead, passing her declining 
years amid the scenes of her active life. Her sons, W. H., S. W. 
and J. C. Braly, constitute the firm of Braly Brothers. Another of 
her sons, B. F. Braly, lives in this vicinity. Braly Brothers own 
twenty-two hundred and forty acres of land. While they have 
raised many horses and mules, they give their attention prin- 
cipally to grain. They have made their own way in the world 
by hard work and have proven their right to succeed by showing 
their willingness in a loyal way to contribute their full share toward 
the prosperity of the community. Their ranch, two and a half miles 
west of Ducor, is one of the show places of that part of the county. 
William H. Braly has served his fellow citizens as school trustee, 
but has never accejited any other office. 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 795 

ELMER L. KITCHEL 

In settling in a new country, the measiare of one's success is 
not so much wliat one lu'ings in as what one acquires. The man 
who comes with ca])ital does not always keep it, and the man wlio 
comes empty-lianded may Hve to fill his coffers. The citizen of 
Tulare county whose name is ahove, arrived with thirty cents cash 
in hand. How he has prospei-ed it is the task of the writer here 
to narrate. Mr. Kitchel was born in Warren county, Iowa, May 6, 
1870, a son of James and Aleysana (Webster) Kitchel, the former 
born in Illinois, the latter in Indiana. The family came to Cali- 
fornia in 1887 and lived at Antioch, Contra Costa county, and from 
there eventually came on to Tulare county. 

Elmer L. Kitchel nuxde his api)earance in the county with the 
small sum mentioned, but he had more and something better — 
he had work in him, work that was for sale because he needed 
cash, work that was wanted because it was honest and thorough 
and effective. For two years after his arrival he was a wage 
earner, then he rented the Johnson & Levison ranch near Visalia, 
which embraced forty acres, devoted chiefly to fi-uit. iVfter operat- 
ing it three years he was able to come to the ranch which he still 
leases and which has come to be known as his home. It is the 
old Patterson ranch, northeast of Visalia, which includes ninety-five 
acres of cultivated land and one hundred and fifteen acres of pas- 
ture. There he has li\ed since 1906. When he came to the place 
it was badly run down. He got busy, cleaning up, cutting do^\^^ 
sixty acres of dead fruit trees, convertiug the trees into four hun- 
dred and fifty-eight cords of wood. Ever since he has been im- 
jiroving the projierty, on which there are now twenty acres of flour- 
isliing i)rune trees which produced nine tons of dried fruit in 1911, 
which tested fifty-two and sold at six cents a jiound. There is also 
a young orchard of thirteen acres of French ])runes which came 
into bearing in 1912. In 1909 Mr. Kitchel had forty-five acres of 
Egyptian corn, which on threshing yielded ten hundred and seventy- 
five sacks, which he regarded as a very favorable showing. In 
1911 he had fifteen acres of corn. Sixty acres of the ranch is de- 
voted to alfalfa, which in 1912 yielded over eight tons to the acre 
for five cuttings. Ten acres of this was sown in December, 1910, 
forty-five in October, 1909. A feature is a dairy of twenty-five cows, 
all young stock, and there are on the place five Pei-eheron mares 
from which Mr. Kitchel raises fine draft colts. The mares weigh 
respectively from fourteen hundred and fifty to seventeen hundred 
pounds. In 1912 Mr. Kitchel became a stockholder in the Visalia 
Co-operative creamery, and also owns stock in a Percheron stallion. 

Socially, Mr. Kitchel is an Odd Fellow, alliliating with Four 



796 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Ci-eek Lodge No. 94. In 1896 he married Mmnie E. Hunniiel, 
daughter of Thomas and Florence A. (Hill) Hummel, both resi- 
dents of Tulare county for the past forty years. She was born 
in Tulare county in that part now in Kings. Mr. and Mrs. Kitchel 
have four children: Kalph, George, Elmer W. and Hattie. 



GEORGE L. BLISS 

Near Visalia, Tulare county, Cal., George L. Bliss, the reliable 
abstract man of Hanford, was born January 24, 1866, a son of 
Henry P. Bliss, Sr., and his wife Roxey (Jordan) Bliss. His father 
was the first of this family of pioneers to settle in Central Cali- 
fornia. He was born in New York state, the son of a Presbyterian 
minister, whom he accompanied to Michigan. 

Amid frontier conditions, in Allegan county, Mich., Henry F. 
Bliss, Sr., grew to manhood. In 1850 he came overland to Cali- 
fornia with an ox-team outfit and settled at Sonora for a short 
time, and later on settled in Tulare county and bought land six 
miles south of Visalia, which he sold later in order to buy a farm 
about a mile south of that town, where he built up extensive stock- 
raising interests. It was after he came here that he married Miss 
Jordan, a native of Texas, who had accompanied P'rauk Jordan, 
her father, to California. From girlhood her home was on the 
Pacific coast and she passed away at the home of her son, Henry 
F. Bliss, in her fifty-fourth year. Henry F. Bliss, Sr., died in 
Visalia in his fifty-eighth year. Of their children, William died in 
Visalia; Henry F. died in Visalia, in 1909; Charles E. is in Fresno; 
George L. is the subject of this notice; Irving is a dairyman at 
Bakersfield; J. H. is in the abstract business in Bakersfield; Mary, 
the eldest daughter, died in Visalia; Cora is in the abstract busi- 
ness at San Diego; Maggie, a graduate of the State Normal School 
at San Jose, married I. E. Wilson of lianford; and Earl (Maggie's 
twin) is in the U. S. army, located at Vancouver, Wash. 

In the public schools of Visalia George L. Bliss was educated 
and in 1885 he connected himself with the abstract business of his 
uncle, John F. Jordan, of the Visalia Abstract company. Even- 
tually be was made deputy county clerk of Tulare county and served 
two years as city assessor of ^'isalia. Later he moved to Bakers- 
field, where he was employed in an abstract office; then, returning 
to Visalia, he was again connected with the Visalia Abstract com- 
pany until July 5, 1899, when he took up his residence in Hanford. 
There he bought a branch of the ^^isalia Abstract company, which 
he has operated to the present time, now kno-mi as the Kings 



TULARE AND KINUS COUNTIES 797 

County Abstract company. Meauwliile lie lias eugaged iu real estate 
business, and since 1899 has been interested in the development of 
oil lands in this part of the state. He is secretary of the Coaiiuga- 
Pacitic Oil and Gas company. In company with Kichard Mills, he 
has lately erected a new brick block on Eighth street opposite the 
courthouse, which he has made the headquarters of his abstract 
business and his rapidly growing real estate business. 

A man of j^ublic spirit, as well as of private enterprise, Mr. 
Bliss has done much for the development of Kings county. Fra- 
ternally he affiliates with Hanford lodge, Knights of Pythias. In 
1890 he married Miss Hattie Beville, a native of Georgia. Their 
children are Iris M., Georgia J. and William Payson Bliss. 



M. F. SINGLETON 

Back in Indiana, a state from which many men have come to 
California to find here signal successes, M. F. Singleton, of Ducor, 
Tulare county, CaL, was born in 1862. When he was about twenty- 
two years old he went to Kansas, where he remained but a short 
time, coming on to California and arriving in Tulare county Aug- 
ust 27, 1884. Such education as was available to him he obtained 
in public schools in the Hoosier state, but as he was obliged to go 
to work for a living when he was fifteen years old his literary 
training was necessarily not very liberal. He came to the county 
alone and for four years worked by the day as a farm hand, and 
his first land was a homestead of eighty acres, which he took up 
soon after he came. By later purchases he has acquired five other 
eighty-acre tracts and now owns four hundred and eighty acres. 
At one time his holdings included other land which brought them 
up to a total of six hundred and eighty acres. He is now raising 
grain in goodly (piautities, being located six miles from Ducor. 

In 1888 Mr. Singleton married Miss Eva J. Hunsaker, a native 
of Tulare county, who died in 1898. In 1902 he married Miss Clara 
E. Gibbons. By his first marriage he had five children, Claude F., 
Louis I., Nettie E., Elsie and Nora. Fraternally Mr. Singleton 
affiliates with Porterville lodge. No. 359, I. 0. O. F., and with the 
Porterville organization of the Woodmen of the World. While he 
is not a practical politician and has never sought ollice, he was, 
in 1910, elected to represent the fifth district of Tulare county in 
the board of supervisors. This is said to be the largest and wealth- 
iest district of the county, lie has novel' accepted any other ollicial 
jiosition, but he is not without honor as a public-spirited citizen and 
as a self-made man, who having begun at the very bottom of the 



798 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

ladder of success, has gained eminence in a fair and square struggle 
for advancement in which he has always been willing to give gen- 
erous aid and honorable dealing. In the days before he was him- 
self a landowner he was instrumental in inducing a well-known 
farmer to have a well put down on his ])lace. It is worthy of note 
that this well was the lirst in the Ducor district for agricultural 
purposes. 



W. D. TREWHITT 

This prominent contractor and builder of Hanford, Kings county, 
favorably known throughout Central California, was born at Cleve- 
land, Bradley county, Tenn. When he Avas twelve years old he be- 
came a resident of Fort Worth, Tex., and there while still quite 
yoimg, served an apprenticeshi]> to the carpenter's trade. He 
worked ten years there, then went to New Orleans, La., whence 
he came to Hanford in 1886. Here he has been busy as a con- 
tractor and builder, the majority of his buildings being handsome 
brick structures, among which are: the First National Bank, Em- 
porium, Vendome Hotel, the New Opera House, the Sharpies, 
Knowell, Bush and Kutner-Goldstein buildings, the Episcopal and 
Presbyterian churches, the Axtell block and the Slight & Garwood, 
Cliildress & Nunes, Kennedy & Rol)inson, Chittenden-Flory, Robin- 
son, K. Rollins and Buck buildings, and the Hanford ice plant, all 
in Hanford; many fine structures in Fresno, P]xeter, Porterville, 
Lemoore, Visalia and San Francisco; a bank building in Patterson, 
Stanislaus county, a $50,000 apartment house in Fresno, a $20,000 
addition to the Burnette Sanitarium in Fresno, a $40,000 addition 
to the court house in A'isalia. a $20,000 grammar school building 
at Visalia, the Mt. Whitney Power company's liuilding in Visalia, 
the Hyde block in ^'isalia, high school buildings at Tulare and 
Porterville, grammar school buildings in Lindsay, Exeter and 
Fresno, a $50,000 school building at C?oalinga and some business 
blocks in Lemoore. One of his notaltle residences is that of D. R. 
Cameron in Hanford. The Hanford Sanitarium, the Delano high 
school, the high school at Msalia, Scally hotel at Lemoore and the 
Convention Hall at Fresno. 

In 1907 Mr. Trewhitt, in association with L. E. Hayes, founded 
the S. P. Brick company of Exeter, which makes six million a ire- 
cut brick annually. He is one of the owners of the Talc & Soap- 
stone company at Lindsay, whose stone material is taken from the 
earth and ground up into a i^owder which is a base for manv 
products, including paints and i)aper, soaps and face powders. He 



TULARP: and kings counties 799 

lias louii- l)eeii interested in ranch jiroperty iu Kings eounty and 
now owns an eighty-acre farm, two miles west of Hanford, which 
is given over to vineyard, orchard and the raising of horses, cattle 
and hogs. In 1907 the firm of Trewhitt & Shields was organized, the 
partners being W. D. Trewhitt and H. W. Shields. Mr. Shields has 
charge of estimates and drafting. 

Fraternally, Mr. Trewhitt is a Mason of the Knights Tem|)lar 
degree, a Sliriner and a member of the Woodmen of the World. 
In 1890 he married Miss Mary Ijillian Carney, a native of Ken- 
tucky, and they have three children: Klizabeth, Dorris and Doug- 
las Trewhitt. 



J. L. PRESTIDGE 

This native of Mississii)i)i and prominent farmer near Dinuba, 
Tulare county, Cal., was born April 1, 18(31, and remained in the 
state of his birth until he was seventeen years old, attending school 
after he had reached school age and acquiring a practical knowl- 
edge of farming which has been the foundation of his later success. 
In 1878 he went to Washington county, Ark., where he remained 
six years. It was in 1886 that he came to California, locating at 
Hills valley and remaining one year. In 1887 he went to Kettlemaus 
Plains, where he took a homestead of one hundred and sixty acres and 
a timber culture claim of one hundred and sixty acres, remaining there 
until 1894, and six years later he located near Dinuba, where he has 
since li\ed. Some idea of the cjuality of the man may be gained by the 
fact that he came to the county without capital and without infiueutial 
friends and has iirospered steadily year after year, in s])iie of many 
difficulties, until he owns a homestead wliicli could not be bought 
for $10,000. His friendliness and public spirit have been of ma- 
terial aid to him, for it is true that one cannot be a friend without 
gaining friends or help the community without helping one's self. 
Fraternally he afliliates witli the Woodmen of the World. In his 
political relations he is a Democrat and as such has been elected to 
important townshij) offices. He is one of the most prominent pro- 
ducers of g.rai)es in this part of the state, having a very large acreage 
devoted to vines, lie also raises much fruit. 

The ))arents of Mr. Prestidge were natives of Mississijijii and 
his father died in the last siege of Vicksburg. In 1880 he married 
Myra D. Pore, who was l)orn in Missouri of paients who were 
natives of Kentucky. Of their five children, three are living. Dean 
Prestidge is well known in Kings county, where he has lived at 
Cottonwood foi- some time ))ast. He married Miss llattie Tottv of 



800 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Los Augeles. George R. is deputy couuty auditor of Tulare county. 
Johnuie is a student in the local public schools. It is probable that 
there is not another man in the vicinity who is more prom])t and gen- 
erous than Mr. Prestidge in the assistance of every movement for the 
public good. 



FEED W. CONKEY 

A native of Wisconsin, Fred W. Conkey, bookkeepei- for G. AY. 
Knox of Orosi and one of the successful farmers of Tulare county, 
was born August 16, 1864, a son of Lucius and Julia E. (Sheldon) 
Conkey, natives respectively of New York and of Michigan. His 
father died in Chicago, 111., in 1904; his mother is still living. Her 
great-grandfather was captain of a company of patriot soldiers in the 
Revolutionary war and was captured by the British and miglit have 
been severely dealt with had he not been pardoned by King George 
because of his standing in the Masonic Order. His great-grandfather 
in the paternal line also fought for the colonies in the Revolutionary 
struggle, his grandfather being a soldier of the war of 1812. 

Mr. Conkey entered the employ of the Swift Packing Company 
and rose to authority in the office and was for several years private 
secretary of Mr. Swift. For eleven years Mr. Conkey was chief 
teller in the office of the county treasurer of Cook county. 111., whicji 
includes the city of Chicago. He married in Chicago Miss Jessie Nye, 
daughter of the Hon. B. F. Nye, now a member of the legislature of 
the state of Kansas. By a former marriage he has two children. After 
the death of his father, his mother removed from Chicago to California 
and bought fifty acres of the old Reinheimer ranch in Tulare county 
for $19,000, and won much success with oranges, raisins, peaches 
and other fruit, having had many vines and seven hundred four-year 
peach trees. This property has been sold for $22,000. 

For two years after he came to California, Mr. Conkey did outside 
work. He now has a forty-acre fully improved ranch near Yettem 
for which he has refused $16,000. He is conducting the El Monte 
Inn, a place of twenty-six rooms, in the management of which he is 
ably assisted by Mrs. Conkey, they having acquired this property by 
their united etTorts, evidencing the reward for unceasing labor and 
toil. Their ])lace is the only hotel in town and holds an enviable re])u- 
tation among the traveling public. Mr. Conkey affiliates with the 
Masons, is secretary of the Orosi lodge, and is a member of Medina 
Temple of Chicago. He is a Republican in his politics and as a citizen 
has evidenced a ]iublic spirit which makes him useful and popular in 
the community. 



TULARE AND KIX(JS COUXTIES 801 

JOHN J. DOYLE 

A descendant of Irish anoestors, tliat enterprising Irish-American, 
John J. Doj'le, of Porterviile, Tulare county, Cah, was ))orn at 
Lafayette, Ind., April 19, IS-l-l, son of John Doyle. The latter was 
born in Kentucky, whence he removed in 1829 to Indiana and there 
followed agricultural pursuits until his death in 1870. John J.'s 
grandfather was William Doyle, who came from Ireland wlien a boy, 
settling first in \"irginia and then in Kentucky, where his death oc- 
curred. John Doyle married Sarah Wilson, born in Virginia, who in 
1876 died in California, where she came with her son John J. on his 
second trij) to the coast. She was the mother of sixteen children, of 
whom John J . was tlie second youngest. 

John J. Doyle was reared on the parental farm until he was nine- 
teen, attending the common schools and also taking a course at a com- 
mercial college. Then he went to Ohio, but soon returned to Indiana, 
whence he came overland to California in 1865. It was not long, how- 
ever, before he returned to Indiana, but he came again in 1867 and 
taught school in Sonoma count}' in 1869. He settled in Tulare county 
in 1871 and has paid taxes there ever since, dui'ing a i)eriod of more 
than forty years. In the historic Mussel Slough fight, in which J. M. 
Harris, Ira Knutson, John Henderson, Archie McGregor and Dau 
Kelley were killed, Mr. Doyle did not participate, but he and four of 
his friends were jailed for eight months because of their infiueuce in 
bringing about the troubles which culminated in the encounter. He 
started the fight and fought the railroad company nine years and four 
months and was ol)liged finally to pay $30.60 an acre for his land fov 
which he had so long contended the railroad company had no title. It 
is a matter of history that more than six hundred other land owners 
set up a similar claim. The memorable year in which he served his 
jail term was 1881. In 1883 he was the first to locate a timber claim 
in the mountains at Sununer Home. At one time he owned over one 
thousantl acres, which he has since sold. After ten years of farming 
in that district he went to the mountains and ])lanted an orchard at 
Doyle's Springs. He now owns about two hundred and eighty acres, 
one hundred and twenty-one acres of which, adjoining Porterviile. he 
platted into lots and is offering for sale. In 1907 he bought ten hun- 
dred and forty acres east of Porterviile, known as tiie old Indian tract, 
and divided it into twenty-acre farms, all of which, except one hundred, 
he has sold. One acre he gave for school purposes and a school house 
was built on it which accommodates about forty pupils. He is luiving 
land and selling on easy terms, as nmch to l)enefit the town as foi- aii\ 
puri)ose of his own, and he intends soon to i)lant near Porterviile an 
extensive orchard of deciduous fruits. 

In 1880 Mr. Doyle married Miss Ijillic Alice Holser, a native of 



80-2 TULARE A XT) KINGS COUNTIES 

Califuruia, who lias borne liiiu four children, three of whom are li\iu.u 
and married, viz., Chester H.; Ruby S., wife of John McFadyen; and 
Floreda Alice, married to C. S. Pinnell. Mrs. Doyle's parents were 
California pioneers, settling- in Sacramento county in the early mining 
days. Her father died in 1866; her mother December 19, 1911, aged 
ninety-two years. Mr. Doyle's parents both died in 1876. The experi- 
ences of the family link the early days with the present time. Mr. 
Doyle has always been noted for his public spirit and has never sought 
any office, though he has ably filled several appointive ones. He is 
helpful to an eminent degree aud his niost distinguishing characteristic 
is his disposition to look on the l)right side of things. 



CHARLES WILLIAM HOSKINS 

No real success in life is won without a persevering struggle, and 
the self-made man is, in the commercial aud financial sense of the 
term, literally self-made. At the beginning he is handicapped by lack 
of capital, and after that his jirogress must be made in the face of 
strenuous circumstances aud often unfair comi)etition. When he has 
reached the top he knows how he got there and so do those whom he 
has left behind in. the race. One of the men of this class in Kings 
county is Charles William Hoskins. Born in Adams county, Iowa. 
June 8, 1861, it was in 1862 that he was taken by his parents to Penn- 
sylvania. He was able to attend public schools only two years, but he 
made the best use of his limited advantages and has since acquired 
much knowledge from books and by an informing course of instruction 
in the college of hard experience. In his infancy he had reversed the 
general rule by going East. He was still but a boy, however, when he 
was in business life as a clerk in a store in Nebraska. In 1891 he 
came to California and in September settled in Tulare county. He 
moved in 1892 to the Lakeside district and opened a blacksmith sho]i 
which he operated about a year, then gave up the enterprise as having 
a not very promising future. He had now had experience in selling 
goods and in ranching and in blacksmithing, and, between times, had 
made himself useful in other ways. Returning to Hanford, where 
some of his experience had lieen obtained, he again became a clerk in 
a general store. Here he would have seemed to have settled down to 
the kind of business to which he was best ada]ited naturally and by 
association. In 1900 he became manager of a general merchandise 
store at Guernsey, which he bought a year later and which he con- 
ducted with steadily increasing success until August 1. 1912. when he 
sold out and removed to his property in Hanford. In 1882 he married 
Miss Alma Atwood, a native of Henrv countv. Til., who has borne him 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 803 

a son, Howard A., who is in the automobile business in Hanford. Mr. 
Hoskins is a member of the W. 0. W., and is a man of public spirit 
who seeks rather to i^ive to, than receive from, the community with 
which he east his lot. 



ADOLPHUS MITCHELL 

The life of Adolphus Mitchell has been closely identified with 
the early history and development of the state of California, and 
he is numbered among- those pioneer settlers who have been instru- 
mental in its progress for many years. He is a re]iresentative of 
an old and honored family, members of which have taken active part 
in the wars of the new as well as the old world. He is the son of 
Lewis and Mary E. (Duff) Mitchell. His grandfather, Solomon 
Mitchell, was a soldiei- in the Revolutionary war, and fought undei- 
General Pickens of South Carolina, while his son, Lewis Mitchell, 
father of Adolphus, was a soldier in the war of 1812. The latter 's 
death occTirred in 1861, wlien he was aged aliout seventy years. On 
the maternal side, the Duff family is of Irish descent. His grand- 
father, Robert Duff, was major in the Irish rebel army. The Irish 
lost their cause, and so Mr. Duff came to America ; but on account 
of religious difficulties he dressed in woman's clothes, was stowed 
away on a vessel and thus came to America, locating in West Vir- 
ginia. Robert Duff married Miss Dickerson, who was also of Irish 
extraction, and their daughter was Mary E. Duff, who was born in 
West Virginia, ilev husband, Lewis Mitchell, was born in South 
Carolina. 

Adolphus Mitchell was born in Hawkins county, in eastern Ten- 
nessee, May 28. 1829, and in 18o6 moved with his parents to south- 
western Missouri, in what was then P>arry county, Imt which lias been 
changed to McDonald county. He attended the common schools there, 
but at that time the method of educating was very crude, owing to the 
lack of facilities. The lights used were pine knots and candles. His 
entii'e attendance at school here covered a ])eriod of only nine months, 
the last two montlis when he was over twenty years of age. Reared 
on the frontier, accustomed to face hardships and unflinchingly forge 
ahead, he was a man well fitted for work in his new home. He remained 
at home until he had reached the age of twenty-five years, when he 
started out with oxen and wagons for the coast, but finally decided to 
leave them on Green River, and iia<'ked from there. He had many 
encouiifcrs with Indians en route, both warriors and friendly, but he 
finally arrived in California August 5, 1855. As he was undecideil 
what line of work to follow he sto])pe(l in the mines for a time and 



804 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

then came to Tulare coimty, where, in 1857, he embarked iu the cattle 
business, buying Spanish cattle to the amount of a hundred and fifty 
head, at $12.50, pasture being free. The next sjoring he sold thirty 
head at $30 each. 

Mr. Mitchell had decided uot to follow the miner's life because 
of their ill luck, and accordingly in 1859 bought land in Visalia, when 
that town had but three business houses. He had crossed the plains 
in company with his brother and there was also a Mrs. Billips in the 
party, whom he afterward found keeping a restaurant in Visalia. At 
the time of this purchase the hoiises there had canvas tops and were 
rudely built. He has seen this coimtry grow to its present propor- 
tions and has benefited by it. In 1857 he met Colonel Baker, founder 
of Bakersfield, who advised him to buy land. This he did, from time 
to time, until he owned twelve himdred acres in that vicinity. Through 
all his hard struggle to gain a foothold in the new country, Mr. 
Mitchell had the assistance and earnest co-operation of his brother, 
Ozro, who was born June 4, 1831, and whose death occurred iu 
December, 1906, at Mr. Mitchell's home, which had always been his. 
He had never married. 

On January 11, 1862, the flood covered their tract with water, and 
there seemed to be three .waves pass through the valley. The second 
flood, on December 24, 1867, coming in one wave, covered everything. 
Mr. Mitchell returned to Missouri in 1869, leaving Visalia on the 
9th of June and arriving home in the same month. Here he remained 
for a time, being taken with an attack of typhoid in July, and he was 
obliged to stay there for fifteen months, during which time his mar- 
riage took place. He returned to California, by stage from Stockton, 
and settled on a ranch near Visalia, where he made a specialty of 
raising stock, but af the time the railroad came was giving his atten- 
tion to the cultivation of wheat. Visalia courthouse was to be moved 
by the railroad, but as the Constitution prohibits removal more than 
once, and it was formerly at Woodville and thence removed to Visalia, 
it could not be taken to Tulare as they proposed. However, it was a 
hard fight to hold it at Visalia, but through the hard work of the 
citizens it was finally kept there. Mr. Mitchell had rented sixteen 
hundred acres for cattle in what is now Kings county, and owning 
cattle, was there when the county division was made. 

Mr. Mitchell was married to Susan Bogle, who was born in 
Cannon county. Tenn., but had lived in Missouri since 1859. They 
had five children born to them, viz. : Mary, who is unmarried ; Walter 
Franklin, who works on his father's ranch; Addie, who is the widow 
of Edward C. Jones, of Visalia ; Chester, deceased ; and Arthur Galen, 
who is also on the ranch with his father. Mr. Mitchell owned at one 
time about twenty-five hundred acres of land, but he has di\'ided his 
property among his children. 



TTXARE AXn KIXGR COUNTIES 805 

Mr. Mitchell takes an active interest in all public matters and is 
a progressive, energetic citizen, hut he would never consent to holding 
office. Since 185(5 he has made many prophesies concerning the wel- 
fare and growth of his adoi)ted state, and they have in most cases 
materialized. A self-made, self-educated man, he is public-spirited 
and interested in all that tends to the prosperity of his conmumity, 
and he is well kuown throughout the countv as a most successful man. 



WILLIAM R. COOKE 

This native of California and well known citizen of Tulare county 
was born in Placerville, January 22, 1857, a son of W. S. and Lucy 
(Eutledge) Cooke. Ilis father was born in Leeds, England, in 1827, 
and his mother was born in England that same year. The former 
came to South Carolina when he was sixteen years old and was for 
some time engaged in shii)ping. Eventually he located in Boston, 
where he comjileted his education and whence he nutved after four 
years to Da\'enport, Iowa, where for a time he sold fanning mills and 
John Deere jilows. There he married Miss Rutledge, who had come 
from her native land when quite young. She is living in San Francisco 
at the advanced age of eighty-five years. In 1851 they came overland 
with a large train from Iowa, halting a short time in Salt Lake City. 
From time to time they had dangerous encounters with Indians and 
when they reached llangtown, now Placerville, they witnessed the 
hanging of a man named Van Lugan. Later they were attacked by 
Indians who drove otT their cattle, killing several. They witnessed the 
sinking of the Humboldt mine in Gold Canyon on the site of Gold 
Hill. At Hangtown, where Mrs. Cooke arrived wearing a green silk 
dress, she was one of but two women in the settlement. A dance was 
given on the evening following their arrival. It was at Ford's Bar on 
the American river that Mr. Cooke had his first experience as a miner. 
He long remembered the arrival of the first circus that visited at that 
diggings. At one time he walked from Hangtown to Sacramento, bare- 
footed, and brought back with other purchases a pair of cop])er-toed 
boots for his son, the subject of this review. From Hangtown the 
family moved to Mountain Springs and from there they moved about 
eighteen months later to Foi'd's Bar, where in 1857 more than five hun- 
dred votes were cast. Their next place of residence, where they re- 
mained until 1859, was at Iowa Hill. Mr. Cooke owned sevei-al mines 
one after another and made and lost considerable money. He became 
prominent in affairs in Placer county and for eight years filled the 
office of sheriff. Tjater at N'irginia City he was elected police judge and 



806 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

tax collector, lie died there in 18!)8 aud his widow removed to San 
Francisco. 

The children of W. S. and Lucy (Rutledge) Coolie were named 
as follows: Sarah A., Mary E., William R., F. W., Jennie V., Henry 
S., deceased, Joseph E., Lucy, and Edwin, deceased. Sarah A. mar- 
ried Andrew Lane and has three children. Mary E. married W. (x. 
Thoni])son of Storey county, Nevada, and has l)orne him two children. 
William R. married lantha A. Kelso and their liome is near Orosi ; 
they have twin sons, Bruce E. and Roy A., born in 1886, who were 
educated at Selma and Stockton, graduating- from the Western School 
of C'onuuerce at tlie age of twenty years, Roy being now bookkeeper 
for the Kirby Winery at Selma. Bruce and Roy prepared for entrance 
at the National Na\al Academy at Annapolis, Md., received the ap- 
pointment, but did not go. Jennie V. is editor of the Pacific Coast 
Nurses Journal, and resides in San Francisco. 

From several of the leading families of America Miss Kelso, who 
became Mrs. Cooke, is descended, one of her ancestors having been 
Henry Clay. Her father, John Russell Kelso, a native of Ohio, was a 
colonel in the Federal service in the Civil War and was a member of 
congress. Mrs. Cooke's mother was born in Missouri and educated 
at Springfield. Mrs. Cooke was a normal school graduate of the year 
1878, became a teacher and rose to the position of vice-principal from 
which she was promoted to that of principal. She taught thirteen 
years in Fresno county, six years in Selma, where she was for four 
years vice-principal. Later she was for one year principal of Bishop 
school in Inyo. Her recollections of California would make an inter- 
esting volume. She distinctly remembers seeing the notorious Sontag 
and Evans pursued liy the men who later brought them to iustice. 

By trade Mr. Cooke is a machinist and millwright, in which 
capacities he worked thirty-eight years. In 1901-2 he mined in Alaska 
with indifferent success, was caught in the ice and sojourned for a 
time on Siberian Island. He was at one tinie interested in the pur- 
chase of five hundred and one acres of land and now owns one him- 
dred and sixty acres of orange land, vines and figs. He has about six 
thousand budded trees for transplanting. He makes a specialty of 
white Leghorn poultry, owning about three hundred chickens. He is 
a Mason and an Odd Fellow, and is a popular citizen who does much 
for the public good. He and his family are Socialists. 



WILLIAM NORVAL STUBBELFIELD 

Arkansas, a state of central geographical location which partakes 
largely of the agricultural qualities of the East, North, South and 
West, has been for many years in a way a clearing house for pioneers. 



TULAKK AXn KINGS ("OUX'I^IKS 807 

gatln'riug them Iroiii I he okk'r parts of tlie coimtry and disti'ihuting 
them to newer fiekls fnrtlier on. One of the numerous good citizens 
which that state lias furnished to California is William Norval 
IStubbeltield, who was horn in Fayetteville, Washington county, Ark., 
January 7, 1873, and lived there until he was nineteen years old. 

From Arkansas Mr. Stuhlielfield went to Baylor county, Tex., 
and after one year's I'esidence there went up into Oklahoma and 
homesteaded one hundred and sixty acres at Cheyenne, Rogei' Mills 
county. In six years he had ])r()ved up on his land, acquired title to 
it and sold it for two thousand dollars. Then he came to California 
and at Cutler, Tulare county, bought ten acres, six of which are in 
peaches, four acres in vineyard, and he secured a very good crop 
in 1911, selling two and one-fourth tons of grapes to the acre. Mr. 
Stulibelfield has given his entire life to different kinds of farming, 
and as he has made a study of soils and seeds and seasons and of 
every other factor in the production of crops of various kinds and 
operates by uj^-to-date and thoroughly scientific methods, he is al>le 
to achieve success where it is possible. He is a meml)er of the 
Fraternal Brotherhood. Politically he affiliates with the Socialist 
party. 

Mr. Stubbellield was married in 1894, at Fayetteville, Ark., to 
Miss ^"ictoria Gulley, a native of that state. Seven childi-en weie 
born to them, viz.: Eula, Eddeth, Annie, William, Claud, Ladona and 
Bessie (now deceased). 



A. CLIFFORD DUNGAX 

A native of Virginia, A. Clifford Dungan, of Exeter. Tulare 
county, was born at Glade Spring, September 10, 1875, the youngest 
of the large family of children of Thomas N. Dungan. He came to 
California in 1894 and settled at Three Rivers, Tulare county, where 
he worked in his brother's sawmill. In 1895 he was em]iloyed liy tiie 
Kaweah Lemon Company, and for three years had charge of one of 
its lemon oi-chards. The ensuing year he was in the em])loy of the 
Ohio Lenum ("ompany. By carefully saving his earnings he was 
enal)led to buy seven acres of land five miles southeast of Exeter. Tho 
l)r()))erty was rough and without iiii])rovements, but with charact'n- 
istic energy and foresight he set out orange trees, erected a pumping 
plant and put on other necessary auxiliaries, and soon had seven acres 
of line bearing na\el ti'ees, which prox-ed very ])rofitable. 

After he had improved his original seven acres Mr. Dungan en- 
tered the service of George T. Frost, who had charge of the Boimie 
Brae orchards, and was made superintendent of th(> vinevards of the 



808 TULARK AXD KINGS COUNTIES 

Frost & Caruey Land and Lumber Company. Two years later he was 
given the management of the orange grove on Badger Hill. While thus 
em]iloyed lie was studying the fruit business, and in 1903 he began 
caring for groves in the Bonnie Brae district on contract. He now has 
seventy-three acres under fruit and vines and a contract covering quite 
a number of orchards. Two hundred and fifty dollars an acre for a 
crop of grapes on twenty acres of four-year-old Emperors was the 
I)rice paid him recently by R. D. Williams. This was a record price 
for a crop of grapes bought outright in the Exeter district, and was 
especially good for the jiroduct of a vineyard of that age. On the other 
hand the crop on this orchard was very heavy and Mr. Dungau made a 
fine profit. On the twenty acres there are approximately eight thou- 
sand vines, most of them yielding three or four crates to the vine. 

At Fresno Mr. Dungan married Miss Nellie Tuohy, a native of 
Oakland, daughter of A. V. Tuoliy of Vacaville and niece of John 
Tuohy of Tulare. She is a graduate of the San Francisco Normal 
School and was for a time a student at the Johns Hopkins Art Insti- 
tute. Mr. and Mrs. Dungan have the following children, May \'ir 
ginia, John Anthony and Helen Margaret. 

In his i)olitical alliances Mr. Dungan is a Democrat, and fratex-- 
nally he affiliates with the Woodmen of the World. He came to Cali- 
fornia in 1894, without cajiital, and by industry and good business 
ability has made a fine property. His success is the success of the 
self-made man, and those who best know him say that it has been fairly 
won and is richly deserved. In many ways Mr. Dungan has deiuon- 
strated a public spirit that marks him as a citizen of much patriotism 
and helpfulness to all worthy community interests. 



ANDREW J. LAFEVER 

Born in Knox county, Tenn, November 14, 1826, Andrew J. T^a- 
fever was a representative of families noted for their valor and 
devotion to justice. His parents were William and Elizabeth (Rob- 
erts) Lafever. In colonial days Henry Lafever, great-grandfather of 
Andrew J., came from France to Virginia and remained there two 
years, then returned to his native land. Later he came with Lafayette 
and fought under that commander for American liberty and after the 
end of the Revolutionary war went back to France, and at Waterloo he 
was a brave soldier under Napoleon. His son, John Lafever, a native 
of Virginia, lived most of his life in Tennessee and gained wealth and 
prominence as a cotton-grower. He fought for the cause of the col- 
onies in the war of the Revolution and yielded up his life in defense 
of free America in the war of 1812. He married Lucv Barbankez, a 



TULARE AXT) KTXfiS (*()UNTTF:S 809 

woman of inucli (.'ourage and decision of character. While in the Revo- 
lutionary army, British soldiers stole sweet potatoes from his farm 
and she shot down seven of them. Though she was arrested she was 
not jn'osecuted, as the soldiers were ai)propriating her proj^erty and her 
stern sense of justice entitled her to a place in the history of those thrill- 
ing times. She bore her husband two children and lived to be eighty- 
seven. Her son William, father of Andrew J., was born in Tennessee 
and in ]S:;4 became the owner of land in Ray county, Mo., partly by 
purchase and partly by i^re-emption. He prospered as a planter and 
slave owner and acliieved prominence' through his interest in the state 
militia and in the training of soldiers, and fought in the war of 1812, 
the Black Hawk war and the Seminole war. He married Elizabeth 
Rol)erts, a native of South Carolina, and he lived ninety-seven years, 
she eighty-four. 

The third of the fourteen children of William Lafever was Andrew 
J., who inherited much of the valor and stern sense of right and wrong 
of his forefathers in both lines of descent. Such education as he 
received lie accpiired in a private school. In his youth he had to do 
with the labor of cotton growing and through trading on his father's 
plantation became expert as a judge of horse-flesh. In 1846 he volun- 
teered for service as a soldier under General Taylor and was assigned 
to the division commanded by Colonel Willock. In 1847 he re-enlisted 
and was assigned to Company C, Santa Pe Battalion, United States 
Army, under eonunand of Gen. Sterling Price, and rose to be sergeant, 
and in 1847-48 was a member of the general's escort. He was honor- 
ably discharged from the service at Independence, Mo., in October, 
1848, and November 4 following cast for his old commander. General 
Taylor, his first presidential vote. For a time he was in the meat- 
packing business at Camden, Mo., where he heard much of the dis- 
covery of gold on the Pacific coast. April 4, 1849, he left there for an 
ox-team journey across the plains, and about seven months later ar- 
rived at the Peter Lawson ranch, near Bidwell's Bar, Cal., and he 
mined in that vicinity during the succeeding thirteen months. At Bid- 
well's Bar, according to an intei'esting writer, "a thief was discovered 
in cam]) who had tried to purloin a can of syrup. A consultation was 
held by the other miners and it was decided to hang without ceremony. 
Mr. Lafever, however, objected, owing to the absence of a code of laws 
covering such misdemeanors. The life of the man was s])ared, but an 
attempt was made to obviate further trouble of that kind by drawing 
up a code calculated to terrorize evil doers." Flogging and hanging 
were features of this code. "Men condemned to ti'ial had the benefit 
of the opinion and judgment of twenty- four substantial men of the 
eomnuinity and every (piestion had to be answered by the witness." 
From this point Mr. Lafever went as a member of a prospecting party 
to the south fork of the Feather river and took ])art in an unsuccessful 



810 Tl'LARE AND KIX(;S COUNTIES 

attempt to change the course of that 8tieam. Later he uiiuetl at 
Marysville and then set out on a fruitless quest of Gold Lake, which 
the history of California mining tells us was never found. Before 
1850 he prospected around St. Louis, Pine Grove, Howlaud Flat. 
Nelson Creek and Poor Man's Creek, and in that year he mined in 
Told's Diggings and at Forbestown. In the last mentioned camp he 
engaged in business as a butcher and as a general merchant. The 
spring of 1851 found him at Lexington, where he built and opened the 
Lexington house, which hostelry was kei)t in a log building near a 
spring which he had discovered the year before; and here also he 
engaged in general merchandising. He built a new house near the log 
cabin at Lexington, of lumber which he sawed by hand, in 1852, and 
established a hotel and butcher shop at Spanish Flat. In 1854 he dis- 
posed of his Lexington interests. He lived at Spanish Flat until 1857. 
"In the meantime, in 1856," says the writer already quoted, "there 
had been great excitement in camp over the water ditches, resulting in 
shooting scrapes and the organizing of a mob that would have hanged 
an innocent man had it not been dispersed by Mr. Lafever. In the 
spring of 1857 Mr. Lafever himself escaped serious trouble because of 
the justifying circumstances surrounding his act. In self defense he 
shot and killed Judge John Chapels, the leader of that mob, and 
though he surrendered to the authorities, nothing ever came of the 
matter. Mr. Lafever showed wonderful clemency for his fallen foe 
hired a man to care for him, and so far ingratiated himself that the 
d>"ing man shook hands with him and expressed an appreciation of his 
bravery." Mr. Lafever went to Marysville in the fall of 1S57 and 
starteci thence for Mendocino county, but stopped at Petaluma and 
Santa Eosa. Later he bought a place at Ukiah in Mendocino 
county and eventually set out for Colorado, but passed the winter in 
Merced county, where he fed two hundred and fifty horses and mules, 
many of which fell sick. He reached Visalia with his stock in August 
and took his horses to the mountains for the winter. Twice, in Mendo- 
cino county, thieves tried to deprive him of his land and in 1871), in 
Potter Valley, H. Griffiths shot him through the left lung and left hand 
and wrist, almost destroying his left arm. 

In 1873 Mr. Lafever bought land near Kings river in Fresno 
county, to which he added by later purchases until he had more than 
a township of unsurveyed land, including Pine Flat, a quarter of a 
township, which he presented to his only child, Henry C. Lafever. 
"When the fence law was passed," narrates the writer already re- 
ferred to, "he experienced serious trouble with his land, for grabbers 
resorted to every device to deprive him of it, even waylaying and 
killing his son, November 17, 1882. During the trial following this 
brutal murder Mr. Lafever killed Zeb Lesley in the court yard at 
Fresno, the outlaw being at the bottom of the difficulties over tlie laud 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 811 

aud the killing- of his sou. The outlaw was surrounded by forty-eight 
of his gang. Through the prevalence of injustice Mr. Lafever lost his 
cattle and land and practically everything lliat he had in the world." 
Mr. aud Mrs. I^afever had at different times narrow escapes from 
Indians. 

In November, ISSf), Mr. Tjafever Ixmght forty acres outside the 
borders of Visalia, where he raised cattle, horses aud hogs uutil 1893, 
when he moved to his home within the city limits at No. 409 Watson 
avenue. His house and all its contents were l)urned May 29, 1904, 
causing a loss of more than $7,000, only $2,200 of which was covered 
by insurance. He jmssed away at his home October 6, 1912. His 
estate consists of two ranches near Visalia ui)on which hog raising is 
carried on extensively. 

March 19, 1852, at Marysville, Cal, Mr. Lafever married Cath- 
erine Trulliuger, a native of Eaden, Germany, who came to Califoruia 
in 1850. The tragic death of their only son saddened the lives of both. 
Mrs. Lafever passed away in May, 1908. A Democrat in politics, Mr. 
Lafever was formerly a member of the Knights of the Golden Circle, 
and was a veteran of the Mexican war, having served as commander 
of his division, aud a member of the ('uliforuia Society of Pioneers. 
Few residents of Tulare county witnessed so much of its development 
as did Mr. Lafever, aud there are few men remaining in California 
today who look back on careers as perilous and as full of vicissitudes 
as was his during the earlier years of his citizenship here. 



RICHARD POWERS 

Of the sons of Illinois who have come to California and made a 
success of their undertakings mention belongs to Richard Powers. He 
was born in the Prairie State, June 24, 1847, aud came to Califoruia 
when he was twenty-one years old with his brother John, settling in 
San Joaquin county, where for thirteen years he was engaged in 
stock aud grain farming. Then he went to Merced county and farmed 
near Minturn for ten years, after which he moved to Butte county 
and carried on farming near Chico for three years. Subsequently he 
engaged in railroad work for two years with headquarters at Redding. 
It was in 1884 that he came to Tulare county, and in 1891 he located 
in Porterville, devoting himself with ability and energy to the stock 
business. His specialty was the raising of draft horses and roadsters, 
which he exhibited at the different fairs aud he secured Tnany 
pi-cniinms for his di'aft horses. At the time he came to Porterville it 
was a mei-e hamlet of but few houses, and his was the first residence 
to be erected off Main street. He has seen the settlement grow to its 



812 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

present importance and has witnessed and participated in the luar- 
velons develoinnent of the country round about. 

December 23, 188,), Mr. Powers married Miss Stella Smith, a 
native of Butte county and the daughter of Theodore and Sarah W. 
(Horton) Smith, who came to California in 1849 and 1852 respectively. 
The former was a native of Kentucky and the latter of Virginia. Both 
came across the plains with ox-teams and they were married in 18.55 in 
Butte county. Later they lived for a short time in Shasta county, but 
returned to Butte county and there passed their remaining years. 
Besides Mrs. Powers two sons survive, Harry C, of San Francisco, 
and Jay, of Redding. 

The devotion of Mr. Powers to the stock business during so long 
a period marks him as a man of persistency, who having formulated 
a plan of action will carry it out intelligently, allowing no obstacles 
to deter him, and bring it to ultimate success if years and opportunity 
are given him. He not only raises many cattle, but he buys and sells 
in the market, and in his business transactions has won a reputation 
for fair dealing of which any man might be proud. 



BEV. JAMES MURPHY 

The long and useful life of Rev. James Murphy, which throughout 
its entirety signifies untiring energy, unselfishness and perseverance 
for the good of others, is a most interesting one, embracing many hard 
and trying experiences but withal receiving the tribute for the high 
calling which he had responded to in that he was beloved by all who 
were fortunate enough to come to know him, and his memory is 
revered by a wide circle of admiring friends. One of God's noble 
creatures, he had ever accepted his task without nmrmuring and filled 
his duties to the best of his ability and many there are who have had 
reason to bless him. 

Born near Richmond, Va., March 18, 1803, James Murphy at an 
early date removed to Tippecanoe county, Ind., where he was married 
to Miss Jane Morris. To this union was born a family of twelve chil- 
dren, six of whom grew to maturity. He was ordained a minister in 
the United Brethren Church when he came to Indiana and continued 
to preach for forty years. Moving from Indiana to Woodford coimty, 
III, he resided there until in August, 1854, when he went to Iowa and 
settled at Clarksville, where he was a pioneer minister. He established 
the first Ihiited Brethren Chui-ch at Covblev Grove, Favette county. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 813 

Iowa, which grew rapidly, and I'orty years later a uew ehurch was 
built at Westgate by that congregation, and this was named Murphy 
Memorial (Mnncli in honor of Rev. James Murphy, who had been its 
organizer. 

In 1886 Henry Murphy, son of Rev. James Murphy, visited the 
latter at Oldwein near Westgate, Iowa, and finding him in ill health 
took him to his home on the north branch of the Tule river, where he 
S]ient the remainder of his life, passing away IMarcli 18, 1892. Rev. 
James Murphy was twice married and as mentioned above sis of his 
twelve children by his first marriage lived to mature age. Delilah, 
who was the wdfe of Daniel Fague, had two children, Mary and Henry; 
she died in 1911, at Oldwein, Iowa, aged eighty-two years. Nancy was 
married three times, first to Ira Havens of Bloomington, 111. ; second to 
James Phillips, of Delhi. Iowa, and had one son, Zina ; and third to 
Zina Wheelock, of Manchester, Iowa; she ])assed away in A])ril, 1911. 
James, now deceased, was married in 1856 to Mary Buckmaster, and 
is mentioned below. Henry is mentioned fully on another page of this 
publication. John, a stockman residing at Atchison, Kans., is married 
and has a family; he is unfortunate in that he is blind. Emaline is the 
widow of Elonzo Spencer, formerly of Bloomfield, Iowa, and she had 
three children, Bert, Louise and William, all residing in the vicinity 
of Bloomfield. By his second marriage Rev. James Murphy was the 
father of three children: Hattie, conducting a hotel at Livingston, 
Mont.; Fred, a wholesale tobacco dealer at Poeatello, Idaho; and Wen- 
rich, a railroad man on the Oregon Short Line. 

James Murphy, son of Rev. James, married in 1856 Mary Buck- 
master, and the eldest daughter of this union is Sara J., now the wife 
of W. R. Neal, who resides at Springville, Tulare county. Mr. Neal 
is one of the leading merchants and postmaster of Springville and was 
at one time state superintendent of ])nl)lic instruction of the state of 
Oregon. He is an educator of note, having followed the profession of 
teaching more than thirty years before taking up the mercantile busi- 
ness at Sijringville, and is pursuing his enterprise with unusual energy 
and such success as to mark him one of the leading business men of 
the county. Mr. and Mrs. Neal have had a family of six children, viz.: 
Minerva is the wife of Rev. AYilliam M. Olderby, pastor of the North- 
ern Liberty Thurch at Philadelphia, Pa., situated at No. 510 Button- 
wood street, and they have one child, James. William is married to 
Catharine GuUey and is a jiartner with his father at Springville. 
Jennie Neal is vice jnincipal of the schools at Porterville. Lillie is 
bookkeejier in her father's business. Gwendolyn is a student in the 
school at Springville. James accidentally shot himself while the family 
were residing in Oregon when nineteen vears of age. 



814 TULARE AND KINGS (^OUNTIES 

A. J. PEREY 

This well known citizen of Hanford, head of the firm of Perry 
& P.arlieiro. was born on the Azores Islands, July 31, 1863, and worked 
in a store there from the time lie was eleven years old until he was 
eighteen. His first emplo>Tnent in this country was on a farm near 
Fall River, Mass., where he remained twenty-two months. In 1883 
he found employment in Fresno county in the construction of levees 
on the Laguna de Taehe grant, to prevent the overflow of water, and 
was retained on the work seven years. After that for fourteen 
months he had a liquor store in Kingsburg. Then for a season he 
helped operate a threshing machine in the vicinity of that town and 
for a year after that had charge of some sheep. The next year he 
put in as a farmer on the Laguna de Tache grant. Next he opened 
a liquor store in Hanford, in the old Freeman house on Fifth street, 
but a month later removed to a store on Sixth street and still later 
to the McJunkin building, which was his headquarters until 1905, 
when he moved to a location at 104 Sixth street, where he sells soft 
drinks and cigars. 

For a time M. V. Garcia was Mr. Perry's partner. He was suc- 
ceeded by S. L. Jackson and he after two years and a half by J. I. 
Barbeiro. The firm conducts a ranch of three hundred and ten acres, 
four miles north of Lemoore, which is now rented out for dairy 
purposes. Beginning January 1, 1913, Mr. Perry will superintend 
the ranch and the business in Hanford will be taken care of by Mr. 
Barbeiro. ]Mr. Perry is a stockholder and was three years a director 
of the Hanford Mercantile store. He is a stockholder in the Portu- 
gese-American bank, at San Francisco, in connection with which he 
is known to men of his nationality throughout the greater part of 
the state. Fraternally he affiliates with the U. P. E. C, the I. D. E. S. 
and the Fraternal Order of Eagles. 

In 1898 Mr. Perry married Anna S. Flores, and they have had 
eight children, seven of whom are living: Lillian, Edward, Tony, 
Lorianno, Earl, Geraldine, Harry and Edith. Tlie latter died when 
she was six vears old. 



FRANK REA 

The Rea family is one of the early Virginia families. Edward 
Rea, great-grandfather of Frank Rea, came from Ireland and settled 
in Virginia before the Revolutionary war. He was a Universalist in 
religion and every genei-atiou of the Reas has clung to that faiili as 
does the present representative of tlie family. It was in Macon 



TULARK AND KIN(}S. ("OUNTIES 815 

coimty. 111., that Frank Rea was born June !i, 1845, and be attended 
public schools until he reached the age of sixteen. Enlisting in the 
Civil War, he rendered faithful service to the Federal cause as a 
private soldier during three eventful years. After the war he returned 
home and for one year attended Lombard University, then completing 
a commei-cial coui-se at Decatur, 111. He worked for his father until 
after he became oi age. During the succeeding four years he was 
engaged in farming in Illinois. Then he came to California and after 
spending two years in the Santa Clara valley came in 1874 to Kings 
county and later located on what has come to be known as bis home- 
stead. During the first few years of bis residence here he worked 
for others, Init as soon as water was obtained he went into stock- 
raising, dairying and fruit-growing. He bas been active in ditch 
construction, and for some years was a director in the company con- 
trolling the outer ditch, which was under his superintendency a year, 
and consequently one of bis public responsibilities after he came to 
the county. He has served as trustee of schools by election as a 
Republican, he being a member of that part}', a venerator of its his- 
tory and an ardent advocate of all its economic policies. By member- 
ship with the Grand Army of the Republic, he keeps alive memories 
of the Civil war days which tried men's souls. Mr. Rea has been a 
director in the Alta Irrigation District for fourteen years, and on 
February 6, 1913, was re-elected for another term of four years. 

Even beyond his expectations Mr. Rea has been prosperous. 
From time to time he bas bought land until he is the owner of ten 
hundred and eighty acres, eighty acres of which is devoted to fruit, 
the remainder to ranching and stock-raising. His cattle herd aver- 
ages two hundred head of blooded stock. The improvements on his 
land are up-to-date and in every way first-class, and his home is one 
of the most attractive and hospitable in the county. His marriage 
occurred in September, 18(i8, to Miss Mattie Ehrhart, who was born 
in Macon county. 111., in January, 1848. Their five children are named 
respectively Clara, Edgar, Frank, Bunn and Neva. 



SQUIRE HAYDEN KINKADE " 

In Monroe county. Mo.. S. 11. Kinkade was born January 1, 18.3(), 
and there be went to school in a log cabin from the time he was six 
years old until be was fourteen, when the family moved to Boone 
county. Mo. From there they went to Scotland county. Mo., whence 
they started to California. Young Kinkade was about sixteen years 
old when the family set out to cross the plains in 1852. A large party 
was banded togethei- foi- company and mutual i)rotection and the loni;- 



816 Tri.ARK AND KINGS COUNTIES 

journey was made with ox-teams, thirty wagons, which made sh)W 
progress over the prairies and through tlie desert for many long weeks 
wliich would liave l)een dreary had it not been for the daily excitement 
inseparable from such a venture. Fortunately there were no Indian 
attacks. The party ariived at San Bernardino in the fall, the Kin- 
kades wintering there, and in the sjiring settled in Santa Cruz county. 
There they remained two years, then moved to Contra Costa county, 
whence they came to Tulare county in 1857 and settled two and a half 
miles southwest of Visalia. Their first experience here was in raising- 
hogs; later they took up cattle and in 1868 went into the sheep busi- 
ness, in which they continued twelve years, running their stock over 
a wide range of country and owning at one time four thousand head. 
There were at that time so many Indians in the county that out on the 
plains as many as six were encountered to each white man that was 
seen. Half a mile south of the Kinkade home about four hundred 
Indians were encamped for some time. Mr. Kinkade has jiassed 
through all the changes and revolutions of farming and ranching in 
Central California and since 1892 has resided in the vicinity of Porter- 
ville. He closed out his sheep interests in 1881, and after selling his 
ten-acre ranch in December, 1912, he moved to Porterville. 

In 1887 Mr. Kinkade married Miss Harriet Anderson, who was 
born April 21, 1851, in Rock Island county. 111. They have had two 
sons: Benjamin Harrison Kinkade, who is employed by Mr. Traeger 
in Porterville, and Milton Kinkade, who died aged eleven months. 
B. H. Kinkade mari'ied Jessie Landers, liy whom he had two daughters, 
Evid M., who died when about two years old, and Jessie Bertha, an 
infant. Mrs. Kinkade died in October, 1912. Mr. Anderson, the father 
of Mrs. Harriet Kinkade, passed away when she was about ten years 
old and her mother when she was four. Mr. Kinkade 's father died in 
1877; his mother in 1885. In his political affiliations Mr. Kinkade is 
a Republican, and his interest in the coninuinity makes him helpful 
in a public-spirited way to every movement looking to its advance- 
ment and prosperity. 



ANDERSON W. LEE 

It was in Indiana that Anderson "W. Lee, who now lives four miles 
southeast of Diuuba, Tulare county, was born March 22, 1867. There 
he lived until in 1889, for three years thereafter making his home in 
Illinois and Missouri. On March 1, 189o, he came to Tulare county, 
Cal., finding the country round about the site of his jiresent home 
practically a vast wheat field. Dinuba had two small stores, there 
was a little store at Orosi and at Sultana no beginning had been made. 



TULARE AND KIX(}S COUNTIES 817 

Me was a daily ol)server of tlie bnildiug of the railroud in his i)art of 
the county and often saw many ten and twelve horse teams awaiting 
the unloading of the wagons which they had hauled out to the line. 
Soon after coming to the county he bought eighty acres of land at $45 
an acre and i)lanted twelve acres to vineyard, twelve to trees and gave 
most of the remainder to alfalfa. He early had a twenty-five acre 
melon |)atch from wiiich he sold in one season about $2,000 worth of 
melons, feeding about as many more to his hogs. His jilace is well 
planted to young vines and he has raised twenty-five tons of peaches 
on five acres of six-year-old trees and in 1912 planted twenty-five acres 
to peaches. He keeps eighty head of stock, besides four good horses. 
In polities Mr. Lee is a Socialist, and fraternally he affiliates with 
the Woodmen of the World. In Johnson county. Mo., he married Miss 
Mary E. Null, a native of that state and whose parents crossed the 
plains with ox teams to California. The party of which the Nulls 
were members were often menaced by Indians, who drove off their 
cattle but killed none of the emigrants. Among pioneers known to 
this family was Charles Crow, who crossed the Isthmus of Panama 
on foot. Among Mr. Lee's household possessions is a quart bottle 
weighing four pounds which was brought overland to California in 
1852. Anderson W. and Mary Ellen (Null) Lee have three daughters 
and one son: Lilly M., Mary Z., Ruby E. and James W. Lilly M. 
has completed her school studies and is now studying music. Mary Z. 
is a student in the high school at Dinuba ; while James W. and Rul)y 
E. are attending grammar school. 



JAMES LAFAYETTE JOHNSON 

It was in the state of Arkansas that James L. Johnson was born 
August 22, 1844. Early in the following year, when he was about 
seven months old, his iiarents, Joseph H. aiiJ Mary (Murray) John- 
son, took him overland to Oregon. After a four years' residence there, 
they came to California. They located first at Napa City, later en- 
gaged in stockraising in the vicinity, and then went to Oakland, and 
for several years they lived there and at Martinez and on San Joaquin 
Island. Subsequently they were at Merced, Gilroy and Watsonville, 
one after the other, and in the meantime James L. had acquired an 
education in the public schools. At Porterville he married Miss Hai 
riet Rhodes, daughter of the late William C. Rhodes, a biogra])hical 
sketch of whom appars in these jiages. Mrs. Johnson bore her hus- 
band tliree children. Edna nuirried William Lucius Kelley, of Fresno 
county, and they have hail three chihlren nameil ('hai'lotte, deceased; 



818 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Loreii and Oia. Ehuo married Bertha A. Crocker aud she lias borne 
Iiim tliree cliildreu : Ich-iia, Fk)renoe and Odessa. Lena is deceased. 

The first land in this vicinity owned by Mr. Johnson was bought 
from the United States government. He in-e-enijited one hundred and 
sixty acres in Jordan Valley and paid it out at $1.25 per acre, and has 
added from time to time and now owns about four sections. Three 
Inindred and fifty acres is devoted to farming, the remainder is hill 
land, used for pasture. On the place are kept about seventy-five head 
of cattle and one hundred head of other live stock. When Mr. and 
Mrs. Johnson settled in the valley, laud could l)e bought at $1.25 an 
acre which would now be cheaji at $200 and upward. The only 1)uyers 
of stock in those days were Miller and Lux. 

The old Democratic iiolitics of his sire was in a way inherited 
by Mr. Johnson, a man of public spirit, ready always to aid to the 
extent of his abilitv anv movement for the good of the community. 



HENRY W. REED 

The well known citizen of Tulare county whose name is Hie title 
of this article and who lives a mile north of Sultana could tell many 
an interesting story of the days before the law was fully established 
in central California. He was personally acquainted with Soutag and 
P]vans and the Dalton brotliers, and with (ieorge Radcliff, who was 
shot bv the latter on Alkali Plains. He tells how the train was stopped 
by the bandits by force of ai'ms and how, when the door of the exjiress 
car was blown from its hinges, Radcliff received a load of shot in the 
abdomen, and he does not fail to add that the brave engineer hung 
to the throttle until he ran the train to Tulare, then died; and lie could 
indicate the place in Fresno county where the Daltons for a time main- 
tained their mountain residence. 

A native son of California, Mr. Reed was born in Kern county June 
23, 1873, and was reared, educated, and lived there until 1884. In 1000 
he came to Tulare county, settling near Visalia. He married in 
August, 1907, Mrs. May (Price) Schaaf, widow of Louis Schaaf. She 
was liorn in Crawford county, Kans., June 23, 1876, and had three 
children, Milo, Chester F. and Marguerite E. Schaaf. By the union 
with Mr. Reed, one son has been born, Harris Reed. Mr. and Mrs. 
Reed are Republicans. 

In 1907 Mr. Reed located on twenty acres of land, which was the 
home of Mrs. Reed, all of which is devoted to fruit and vines, he hav- 
ing nine acres of vineyard and seven acres of apricots. In 1911 he 
marketed eight tons and a half of raisin grapes. He is an enterprising 
fanner and a progressive public-spirited citizen. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 819 

THOMAS SMITH 

The sons of Ireland makes friends everywhere, succeeding in any 
community with wliich their lot may be cast, and California has always 
welcomed this industrious class to the ranks of its citizens among 
those who have sought a home under her sunny skies. One of the most 
pros])erous farmers in the vicinity of Ilanford is Thomas Smith, who 
was born in Irehuid, June 27, 1841. He came, comi)arative!y young, to 
the United States and finished his studies in New York, whence about 
1860 he went to San Francisco, and from there he moved to Merced 
county. Later, in September, 1872, he settled in Tulare county, in 
that jiart now known as Kings county. Soon thereafter he located on 
one himdred and sixty acres which was the nucleus of the homestead 
wliich is now one of the land-marks of his part of the county. One 
year later, in 187.'>, he bought a second one hundred and sixty-acre 
tract, increasing his holding to three hundred and twenty acres. He 
engaged in di-y farming and has given much attention to dairying and 
to hog-raising. Having been a farmer all his life he has obtained an 
intimate practical knowledge of everything making for successful cul- 
tivation, and so expert is he that in the operation of his fine ranch very 
little is left to chance except such things as unavoidably depend upon 
unforeseen developments in the way of blights and pests. He is 
one of the very few pioneers in his ])art of the countv and 
ervery improvement on his ranch today was placed there by himself. 
In 1912 he and his son bought a twenty horse-power gas engine which 
is used for pumping water for irrigation on his place as well as his 
son's. The wells are eighty feet in depth, furnishing ample water for 
their need. 

October 13, 1886, Mr. Smith married Mrs. Margaret (Gann) Whit- 
worth, a native of Wisconsin, who in 1852 was brought in an ox-wagon 
across the plains- by her parents, who were California pioneers of that 
time. By a former marriage Mr. Smith was the father of two children, 
William H., who lives on an adjoining farm, and Mrs. Stella (*urry. 
residing near Hanford. One child was born to his union with Mrs. 
Whitworth, a daughtei'. Myrtle J. Wilkinson, who resides near Eiver- 
dale. Mrs. Smith was married (first) to P. Johnson and became the 
mother of two children, Mattie and Katie. By her marriage to Mr. 
Whitworth she ha<l a son. Clarence. 



CECIL M. SMITH 

It was in Athens county, r)hio, tliat Cecil 11. Smith was born in 
1867. Tliei-e lie lived until he was seventeen yeai's old, gaining an 
education in tlic puldic schools and obtaining an iiitiiiiatc loiowledge 



820 TULARE AND KINGS TOUXTIES 

of a, sii-i culture by actual daily coutact with the soil. When he left the 
home of his childhood it was to go to Kansas with his parents, who 
established a new home for the family in that state. There he worked 
for wages until in 1887, when he immigrated to California and settled 
in Tulare county, which was then almost entirely devoted to grain- 
growing. After he had farmed five years he and his brother began to 
buy land, theii- first purchase being a tract of one hundred acres, and 
they soon afterward bought another of fifty acres. At this time Mr. 
Smith has one hundred and fifty-five acres which he operates as a 
dairy, milking about forty cows and doing a business of about $200 a 
month. Beginning with no capital, he has made all he has by hard 
work and the exercise of good business ability. The excitement of 
politics has never appealed to him and he has little liking for partisan 
activity, but he takes a public-spirited interest in everything that in 
any way influences the well-being of the people. At this time he is 
very creditably filling the office of school trustee. His parents passed 
away after lives of usefulness. His father was a native of the state 
of New York, while his mother was born in Ohio, a daughter of 
pioneers. He has himself been familiar with pioneering in the middle 
west and on the coast, and, accepting the conditions under which the 
pioneer must strive, he has striven and succeeded. 



WILLIAM W. ROBINSON 

The late W. W. Robinson was born in Indiana, and was united in 
marriage there when a young man to Miss Margaret McClintock, and 
they resided in Illinois, Iowa and Missouri, in which states their chil- 
dren were born. In 1880 they all came to California, and Mr. Robin- 
son bought some land near where Armona is now located. There he 
lived with his family until recently, when he went over into Fresno 
county, when he had another ranch, and after putting in a crop was 
taken ill. 

At his death Mr. Robinson left, besides his widow two daughters, 
Mrs. H. P. Brown of Hanford, and Mrs. George Campbell, of Suisun, 
also five sons, Marion, George, Grant, Henry and Charles, all of Kings 
county. One daughter, Mrs. Knapp, died near Armona in 1903. 

W. W. Robinson was a brother of the late J. S. Robinson, who 
was likewise a Kings county ]iioneer and had one sister, Jane SutcliiT. 
of Albion, Iowa. Mr. Robinson was a man who was very successful 
in his business undertakings. He was a man of large executive ability, 
decided force of character, very reserved and unassuming, quiet, and 
very industrious, with exceptional powers for enduring work and sus- 
taining effort. He was known as a thoroughly good man at heart, and 



TULAKK AND KINGS COUNTIES Sl'1 

hail many warm friends. lu his home circle he \\'ill ever be remem- 
bered as a kind parent, while the vicinity in his death suffered the 
loss of a man of the strictest integrity. He died at llanford Friday 
morning, February L'4, 1905, aged sixty-nine years, ten months and 
twentv-three da vs. 



WILLIAM A. SEARS 

The Sears family, of which AVilliam A. Sears is a prominent mem- 
ber, is an old historic one in America, whose numerous representa- 
tives are residing in nearly every state of the Union, giving to their 
country jiatriotic and industrious service and adding greatly to the liest 
and most re]>reseutative citizenship. There are many l)ranches of the 
family in Ibis country and nine generations have lived in the United 
States. Originally of England, the first American ancestor of the 
family was l)orn in England, probably not far from the (Tuernsey 
Islands, but there the name was spelled Sares. This progenitor was 
named Richard Sears, and the first auth.entic record we have of him 
is on the ta.\ list of Plymouth Colony, dated March 25, 1633, when he 
was one of forty-four out of eighty-six persons who were assessed 
nine shillings in corn at six shillings per bushel. He soon crossed over 
to Marblehead, Mass., and was listed as a tax-])ayer of that place, 
and in the Salem rate list was granted four acres of land "where he 
had formerly planted." This was dated October 14, 1638. 

Arthur Elliott Sears, father of William A., was an industrious 
and well-known minister in California as early as 1878 and his memory 
is deeply revered by all who have had the good fortune to know him. 
He was born in Cincinnati, and in Missouri was married to Eliza E. 
Def^'rance, who was lioru in Mercer count\'. Pa., near New Lelianon. 
Mr. Sears had been previously married and was the father of five chil- 
dren bv this marriage, William A. being the only child of the second 
union. In 1862 Arthur E. Sears came across the i^lains with ox-teams 
and settled in Oregon, bringing his family with him. He was a 
Methodist minister and was an early organizer and itinerant ])reacher, 
and was a pioneer of Methodist preaching, traveling and organizing in 
that state, giving his services up to that vocation for a i)eriod of thirty 
years. In 1874, his healtli becoming im])aired, he went to Colorado 
and was given entire charge of the work of organizing for the Meth- 
odist Episcopal Church South in Colorado, where he labored diligently 
until he came to California in 1878. As a local minister he continued 
to labor in California foi- the rest of his days, and such was his 
influence for good that at his death in 1906 this comnuinity felt 
deprived of a kindly spirit whose place could never be filled, lie made 



822 TULARE AXD KINGS COUNTIES 

his home witli las son and his widow continued to live with hiui uutil 
she ijassed away P\^biuaiy 14, 1913, at Porterville, where both of them 
were buried, and their memory will ever be held in high reverence 
for the lives of liigh principles and honor which they had led, to say 
nothing of their energetic efforts and achievements in their chosen 
field, which ever command unselfishness and untiring industry and 
coui'age, marked traits in tlieir characters. 

William A. Sears was born in Milan, Sullivan county, Mo., De- 
cember 14, 1860, and lived in Oregon from 1862 to 1874. In the 
common school of Polk county. Ore., he received his elementary educa- 
tion and also at the schools of Golden, Colo., where he completed the 
high school course. Upon arriving in California he matriculated at 
the Normal school at San Jose and was graduated with the class of 
1882. Eager to com])lete a law course he had read law with his uncle, 
the Hon. A. H. DeFrance, wliile he was in Colorado. Hon. DeFrance 
was then First Territorial Senator, then State Senator and then was 
a);)]iointed Supreme Court Commissioner, and later was elected United 
States District Judge from Colorado, wliich office he held with great 
honor until his death. He was also attorney for the Colorado Central 
Railroad Co., and under his able supervision Mi-. Sears imbibed the 
rudiments of legal training which have served him to no mean purpose 
in his real estate and other business interests. After coming to Cali- 
fornia and graduating from the Normal he taught school for a time 
and soon began to interest himself in real estate investments. Buying 
land, he developed a fruit ranch in Santa Cruz county and this was 
his real start in his chosen line of work. In 1903 he came to Tulare 
county from San Jose and bought in partnership with A. V. Taylor, of 
Hanford, a tract of four thousand acres at Angiola, which for one 
year he superintended and then sold out his interest to Mr. Taylor and 
made his way to Porterville. He then bought a tract of three thousand 
acres on the White river which he still owns and which is operated as 
a stock and dairy ranch. Mr. Sears is the i)resent proprietor of the 
Sears Investment Co., with offices at No. 508 Main street, Porterville, 
and is well known in liis community as a prosperous business man, 
who is an authority not alone on land, but on fruit growing and all their 
relative branches. He is a stockholder in the Porterville Co-operative 
Creamery Co. He has just moved his family into their fine residence 
on El Granito avenue, Porterville, which is one of the picture places 
of that city. Indei)endent in his ])()litical viev:s lie has always refused 
any political honors and votes locally for the man he deems best 
suited for the office. In national affairs he unites with the Democratic 
party. 

Mr. Sears was married January 1, 1888, to Miss Sara B. Loucks, 
of Contra Costa county, the daughter of the late Hon. George P. 
Loucks, wlio was lor many years in political office in Contra Costa 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 823 

coimty. He was a leader in politics in the Republican party in South- 
ern t'aliforuia, where he was justly well and favorably known. For 
years he was a member of the Republican National Committee and of 
the State Central Committee. The eldest of Mr. and Mrs. Sears' four 
surviving children is (leorge Arthur, now manager of the telegraphers 
in the K office of the Southern Pacific Railway at Bakersfield. By his 
marriage with Miss Abbie (ilil)bons of Porterville he has two children, 
(iciirgie and Eloise. William Allison, Jr., is at jjresent manager of a 
drug store at Strathmore and is unmarried. Emma Pauline and 
Annie Belle are both at home. These children represent the tenth 
generation from their American ancestor, Richard Sears. In religion 
the family are Congregationalists and socially are well known and 
number their friends by the score. 

Mr. Sears has the honor of being the first grower to ojjeu up, 
advertise and make known the orange lands south of Porterville 
under the new irrigation system for oranges, and his success has' 
been such as to attract the attention of many who have those interests 
at heait. A very interesting article written by Mr. Sears on this 
subject and giving a detailed account of the beauties and advantages 
throughout the Earlimart Colony in that vicinity may be found in 
the July, 1906, issue of the magazine entitled Out West. He was one 
of the organizers of the Porterville Realty Board and Chamber of 
Commerce and has since been one of its influential members. He has 
found time from his active business life to organize the Imi)ro\'ement 
Club here and this has l)een since taken over by the ladies of Porter- 
ville. Such a citizen merits the praise and earnest gratitude of his 
fellow-citizens, and Mr. Sears is fortunate in that he receives the 
esteem and confidence of all who know him and he holds an enviable 
place in the minds of many who have come to appreciate his excellent 
characte)istics and his sagacious and well-informed mind. 



FRED SAIIKOIAN 

This skillful farmer is well known and res])ected in the vicinity of 
Yetteni, where he is enjoying prosperity as the result of well-directed 
effort. He was born November 25, 1S84, and remained in his native 
Armenia until he was fourteen years old, then came to the United 
States with his father and at Philadelphia, Pa., ate his first turkey 
dinner, an experience which he will always remember. After a short 
stay there, be came to California and settled in Fresno county, where 
he lived seven years. He attended school for a time, farming and 
fruit-growing for wages and learning the work and the ways of the 
countrv. 



S-24 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

It was to Tulare county, where he has since lived, that Mr. 
Sahroian went from P>esno county in 1907. He soon bought twenty 
acres of land and later forty acres more, making' a farm of sixty acres, 
which he has improved with a house, a barn and other necessary build- 
ings. He has forty-three acres under vines, seven acres bearing 
peaches and ten acres devoted to oranges. One year he sold twelve 
tons of Thompson seedlings from six acres; also eleven and one-half 
tons of Muscats, and forty-eight tons of Zinfandels. His orange grove 
is young and his peach trees are just coming into bearing. As a 
citizen he has the good opinion of his neighbors, and fraternally he 
affiliates with the Yettem Bauavalimi club. Politically he is a Repub- 
lican. He married Victoria Meledouian in April, 1912. 

Mr. Sahroian 's parents. Melick and Elbis Sahroian, are members 
of his household. ( )f their six children he is one of the most helv)ful 
to them. His sister married James Dagdighiau and lives at Selma, 
Fresno county. Mr. Sahroian, still loving his native land with true 
patriotism, is nevertheless thoroughly Americanized, and his aspira- 
tions are all for the future greatness of his adopted country. In many 
ways he has shown that he possesses a commendable jniblic spirit and 
there is no local interest that does not have his encouragement and 
sup]iort. 



JOHN J. SCIIUELLER 

One of the most persistent and successful promoters of the devel- 
opment of Central California is John J. Schueller of No. 401 South 
Bridge street, Visalia. Mr. Schueller was born in Prussia in 184-1^, and 
was brought to the United States by his family, which settled in She- 
boygan county, AVis. After leaving school he became a salesman of 
agricultnial implements, in wliicli capacity he traveled many years, 
winning much success and acquiring a wide acquaintance. In 1884 he 
bought land and settled down to farming and cattle, horse and hog 
breeding, besides giving considerable attention to grain, and eventually 
he allied himself successfully with the insurance business. Twenty 
years later, in 1904, on account of imjjaired health, he gave uj) the 
latter business and settled at Msalia. Tulare county, becoming the 
owner of one hundred and sixty acres of land northeast of town, so 
exceedingly rich and productive that in 1907 he marketed one huudred 
and eighty tons of hay cut froui one huudred acres. This' property is 
now operated by a tenant under lease. Mr. Schueller is the owner of 
valuable real estate on South Bridge street, Visalia, and being a man 
of much public sjnrit he has from time to time participated jiromi- 
nentlv in movements for the benefit of the comnumity. He is much 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 8:25 

interested iu the develoiiiiieut of Tulare county, and as a correspondent 
to German papers i)ul)lislied in "Wisconsin, lias ])ut many glowing ac- 
counts of local conditions and advantages before his countrymen in 
that state. This work lie has followed up by writing letters to inquir- 
ers, setting forth the healthfulness of Tulare county's wonderful cli- 
mate and giving in detail some account of the opportunities here 
offered to home-seekers. As the result of his personal efforts forty- 
nine families of Germans have lieeome permanent settlers in the 
county. He is the moving s])irit also in German Lodge, California 
D. 0. H., No. 693, which has a membership of one hundred and twenty- 
two Germans, all of whom are able to read and write the English lan- 
guage. 

In 1872 Mr. Schueller married Miss Augusta Poppe, a native of 
Germany, and he has seven children and thirteen grandchildren. Fol- 
lowing are the names of his children : John P., Andrew, Herman, 
Casper, Joseph, Josejihine and Clara. Josephine married Casper 
Schlaich, and Clara is the wife of A. L. Depute. 



GEORGE H. TEAGUE 

On the farm near Exeter, Tulare county, on which he now lives, 
George H. Teague was born in 1877. He was educated at Exeter and 
at Visalia and was reared to familiarity with farm work. John 
Teague, his father, was born in Missouri and came with an ox-team to 
California more than forty years ago and settled on the ranch which is 
now the home of his son. The country was then new and not very 
productive and his greatest success was in raising stock. He married 
Susan Buckman, a native of Kentucky, who survives him, he liaving 
passed away in 1907 on the family homestead near Exeter. 

After his father's death Mr. Teague became associated with his 
mother in the conduct of the farming and stock raising enterjirise 
which the elder Teague had brought to such important proportions. 
They liave seventeen hundred and thirty-five acres of land in tlie 
foothills, which is a cattle range. Besides the homestead, which con- 
sists of one hundred and fifty-three acres, they own one hundred and 
sixty acres one-half mile north which George H. and his brother 
Edward E. devote to stock raising. A man of public spirit, Mr. 
Teague is in every way a worthy and useful citizen. In 1907 he mar- 
ried Miss Eva Wiley, a native of Iowa, whose parents had brought her 
to California. While he does not hold membership in any parlor of 
Native Sons of the Golden West, he is a native son of sunshiny Cali- 
fornia, proud of his liirth within its borders and solicitous not onlv 



826 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

for its material advancenjent, Imt for the moral njilift of all its i)eople 
of whatever class or condition. 



OCTAVIUS H. WEBB 

A native of the Old Dominion, Virginia, O. H. Webb, wliose 
present postoffice address is Dinulia, Tulare county, Cal., was born in 
historic Fluvanna county, January 27, 1857. His father, George H. 
Webb, a carpenter by trade, served under General Lee in the Civil 
war, from 1861 to the end of the struggle, and during the closing years 
of his service was detailed to the commissary department. He mar- 
ried Martha Noel, who like himself was a native of Virginia, and they 
had three children. 

In 1887 O. H. Webb came to California and since then has given 
all of his active years to ranching. He has bought town lots in Dinuba 
and built a residence near the high school. For one acre he paid $100 
and for his other Dinuba lots $100 each. He leases forty acres of the 
Humphrey land and has five acres in orchard, the remainder in vine- 
yard, yielding an average crop of one ton per acre. Five acres he 
devotes to peaches, which yielded in 1911 one ton of dried fruit per 
acre at an average price of eight cents a pound. 

In his youth Mr. Webb learned the carpenter's trade with his 
father, who was a contractor and builder, but he has not followed his 
trade since coming to California. Politically he has always affiliated 
with the Republicans. In ^"irginia he married Sallie Mahaynes, and 
they have a son, Hoi'ace L. Welib, who is married and has two children. 
Mrs. Webb died in May, 1887, deeply regretted by all who had known 
her. As a citizen Mr. Webb is piiblic s])irited to a noteworthy degree, 
taking a deep and abiding interest in all economic questions affecting 
the welfare of his communitv and state. 



HARVEY L. WARD 

December 28, 1851, Harvey L. A\'ard. son of Lewis and Mary 
(Harmon) Ward, was born in Shiawassee county, Mich. His father 
was a native of Vermoiit, his mother was born in the state of New 
York; they were the first cou])le married in the vicinity of their home 
and Mrs. Ward taught the first school there. Lewis Ward was a suc- 
cessful farmer. In 1862 the family crossed the plains with horse- 
teams to California by way of Omaha, Salt Lake City and the Sink of 
the Humboldt, traversing the desert and arriving eventually at Placer- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 827 

ville. They soon located at Mud Sjirius' in Placer county and lived 
afterward at Bodega Corners, Sonoma county. In 1866 the family 
returned to Michigan, experiencing considerahle delay at Greytown, 
where they had to wait for a vessel. For two years they lived hear 
Clarence, Shiawassee county, Mich., maintaining themselves by farm- 
ing, and in 1868 they returned to California by practically the same 
route over which they had come out before, except that they crossed 
the river at North Platte, taking their wagons across on hand-cars and 
swimming their stock, wliicli tliey effected successfully, while others, 
who paid $200 to liave their stock taken over, lost some of it. On the 
way they saw many graves marked "Killed by Indians." After a 
short stop at Sacramento they went on to Bodega Corners, where Mr. 
Ward operated a hotel, meanwhile becoming owner of a farm in Green 
Valley. 

In 1877 Mr. Ward came to Stokes Mountain and in 1880 he mar- 
ried, in the Wilson district. Miss Martha E. West, a daughter of Cali- 
fornia, whose parents had come across the plains in 1849. Her father, 
Morris M. West, a native of Kentucky, had lived some time in Mis- 
souri, whence he came to California, jiartially )iy the Platte i-oute. His 
cattle gave out on tlie way and he made a trade In- which he had a 
better outfit than that witli which he started from Missouri. After 
li\iiig for a time in Sutter county, he moved to San Jose, whence he 
came to Tulare county, later locating in the Wilson district. Mr. and 
Mrs. Ward have had four children, Phoebe G., Arthur T., Henry H.. 
and Stella. The last-mentioned has passed away. Henry H. mar- 
ried Mabel Allen, a native of California, and she has borne him a son, 
Allen Ward. Phoebe G. has distinguished herself in the high school at 
Yisalia. Mr. Ward, most of whose schooling was obtained in the 
public school at Bodega Corners, Sonoma county, was determined to 
give his children the best education at his command. In 1892 he 
Iiought ten acres, where he now lives, two miles north of Orosi. That 
land was then mostly under vines. He has since been an extensive 
])urcliaser of land and now devotes twenty-two acres to vineyards, 
growing Muscat grapes and a few Sultanas. He has five hundi-ed 
acres on Sand Creek devoted to pasturage, with two hundred acres of 
woodland adjoining. He also owns one hundred and twenty acres in 
the Baker Valley. Giving considerable attention to stock, he is es])e- 
cially interested in his fruit trees and vines. In a single year he has 
raised tliirty-two tons of raisins and he has several thousand cords of 
wood on his property. When he came to this locality, where he and 
his brother, I. T. Ward, were among the earliest wheat growers, wild 
game was plentiful and he has killed many deer and antelope as well as 
))ear. mountain lions and foxes. He was interested in teaming to the 
mountains 1877-9!) and freighting to the mines in Tuoluiiuu' county 
1888-1900. His recollections of the past are most interesting. Politi- 



828 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

(■ally Mr. Ward i? an inde]iendeut Republican. He and his family are 
communicants of the Christian church. 



WILLIAM A. WILLIAMS 

In Queens county, N. Y.. part of Long- Island, in tlie old town of 
Jericho. William A. Williams was i)orn .January 1, 1.S40, a son of 
George and Mercy Williams, both of whom were natives. of Hyde Park, 
London, England. When lie was six years old his family removed to 
Mill Neck, N. Y., whence they went to Hempstead, Long Island. 
After two years' residence there they moved to a place four and a 
half miles west of TToboken, N. J., near the Hudson river, and there 
lived for quite a number of years. The father was an industri(ms 
teamster and farmer, and there were nine children in the family. On 
July 80, 1862, William A. Williams enlisted as a private in Company 
K, Eleventh Regiment, New Jersey A'olunteer Infantry, and later 
saw some of the most hazardous service of the Civil war. At Chan- 
cellorsville, his first battle, of five hundred men detailed for a certain 
duty, eighteen were killed, one hundred and forty-six wounded and five 
missing. On the second day of the fight at Gettysburg seventeen men 
of his regiment were killed, one hundred and twenty-four wounded and 
twelve missing. The Eleventh New Jersey was included in Humph- 
rey's division of the Third Army Corps, being afterwards transferred 
to the Second Corps under General Hancock. Mr. Williams took part 
in twelve battles and in a large number of skirmishes, among them the 
second Chancellorsville, Battle of Wilderness, Spottsylvania and Cold 
Harbor. In his last general engagement he was wounded in the head 
by a Confederate sharpshooter and sent to the hospital, and in the 
course of events he was discharged from the service for disal)ility, 
March 11, 1865, about a month before the collapse of the Southein 
Confederacy. 

Returning to New Jersey, September, 1865, Mr. Williams mar- 
ried Josephine L. Williams, in June, 1866, and she bore him four chil- 
dren, Gertrude, Clark V., Josephine and one daughter, deceased. 
After his marriage, he lived three years in Adams county. Wis., where 
he devoted himself to farming and hop-raising. In 1870 he home- 
steaded land in Kansas, where during a time of privation he and his 
family lived on buffalo meat and artichokes, for the cooking of which 
there was no fuel but buffalo chips. It was necessary for them to 
haul their i)rovisions one hundred and fifty miles, from Waterville and 
Marysville. The great grasshopj^er year, 1874, Mr. Williams will 
never forget. One of his neighbors had his grain in shock and he 
helped him to thresh his wheat. The man declared that he would cut 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 829 

his corn as soon as the tirst grassho])per would appear, but the pests 
came in such numbers that they ate ten acres of corn before he could 
do anything to prevent them, and after having vainly attacked them 
with rollers, lae and his wife were obliged to burn the prairie to kill 
them. From 1880 to 1906 he lived in various places in Colorado and 
South Dakota. In October of the year last mentioned he bought forty 
acres in Tulare county at $40 an acre. Previously he had owned land 
in the Owens river valley, which he sold to the city of Los Angeles. 
His forty-acre tract in Tulare county was unimproved, but he has since 
built a house, a barn and other necessary buildings on the property 
and is making a specialty of the cultivation of jMuscat grapes. 

Associations of the days of the Civil war are maintained by Mr. 
Williams in a way by his membership in the Grand Army of the Re- 
pul)lic and he receives a goverm;:ent ];ension of $24. He was a charter 
member of General Shafter Post No. 191, G. A. R., of Dinuba. Politi- 
cally he is a Republican. As a citizen he is public-spirited and helpful 
to all good interests of the community. Dear to him as are the mem- 
ories of his youth and of the Civil war period, the recollections of his 
days of overland travel, in the period 1870-85, are no less fondly cher- 
ished. They picture to him the old road to Kansas and to Colorado, 
glimpses of Greeley and Fort Collins and of other wayside places and 
of Miller, S. Dak. Those days under the white-topped prairie schooner 
were days of discomfort, but they were days of hopes that after a time 
were fully realized. Mrs. Williams died in 1887 at her home in Mis- 
souri Hot Springs, whither she had gone on a visit and for her liealth 
while her husband was getting settled in his new location. 



WILLIAM ALFORD 

One of the native sons of California who are winning success in 
Tulare county is William Alford, who is farming and dairying eight 
miles north of Exeter on rural free delivery route No. 1. Mi-. iMford 
was boi-n in Plumas county in 1862 and began attending si'lido! near 
his childhood home. When he was twelve years old he was brought by 
his family to Tulare county, where he completed his education and 
where he has lived continuously to this time except duiing three or 
four years. His father, who was a native of Virginia, was a ]n'omi- 
nent farmer and an active promoter of irrigation who had much to do 
with the construction of early ditches in the county. His mother, also 
a native of the Old Dominion, was a woman of the finest character, 
who influence has been a beneficent force in her son's life. They came 
to California among the pioneers, as long ago as 1853, and ])assed to 
their reward many years ago. Mr. Alford has been familiar with the 



830 TULARE AND KINGH COUNTIES 

work of the farm since his childhood, haviiifi: been early instructed iu it 
by his father. AVhen he came to Tulare county the country was new, 
settlements were sparse and improvements were few and primitive. 
He has Iieen permitted not only to witness but to participate in its de- 
velojiment into one of tlie most jiroductive districts of a state of won- 
derful resources. 

In 1S82 Mr. Alford l)ou<iht fcirty acies of land and in V.W7 one hun- 
dred and sixty acres more, constituting a farm of two hundred acres, 
which he devotes to farming, dairying and stock-raising, keeping 
about twenty cows the year round. His career has been successful 
from every point of view, for while he has prospered financially he 
has won the respect of his fellow-citizens by an exhibition of public 
spirit that has made him most helpful to all worthy local interests. 
His reminiscences, could they lie given in full, would be most interest- 
ing as a contribution to the history of the county. He knew the 
pioneers and has known all the prominent men of a later day. At the 
time of the lamentable Mussel Slough fight, so-called, he was within 
a half a mile of the scene of action. 

In 1890 Mr. Alford married Miss Mary Etta Mason, a native of 
California and a daughter of a pioneer freighter in this part of the 
country, and she has borne him twelve children, all of whom survive. 
Mr. Alford's interest in education has impelled him to accept the 
office of school trustee, which he has filled greatly to the advantage 
of the schools and his neighborhood. 



JAMES ALLEN BACON 

In St. Louis county. Mo., James Allen Bacon was born November 
19, 1838, the eldest of the eight children of William Bacon, six of whom 
survive. The father was born in Kentucky in January, 1800, a son of 
Nathaniel Bacon, who located in St. Louis county. Mo., after the war of 
1812. There William lived until 18-19, when he started with his family 
to Texas. In Crawford county, Ark., they were detained by illness 
and there he bought a farm on which he lived until 1859, when he set 
out for California with his wife, four daughters and three sons. They 
came by El Paso and stopped for a while at Tucson, Ariz. Later they 
completed the journey to California by way of Yuma to Los Angeles 
and the Tejon Pass to Tulare county. They crossed the Colorado 
river at Ft. Fillmore and soon met Indians who run off their cattle; 
but followed two of them who had the cattle in charge and rescued 
the animals. Ten miles northeast of Visalia on the Kaweah. Mr. 
Bacon liought a farm, and in 1868 he took up one hundred and sixty 
acres, now the site of Orosi, where he was a pioneer settler. James 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 831 

A. Bacon hauled lumber from the mountains and with help of hii'ed 
men built the first house there, which is yet standing. The family 
afterward removed to Visalia, where the father died, aged eighty-one 
years. The mother, Mrs. Permelia Bacon, a native of St. Louis county, 
Mo., died in Fresno county in her seventy-ninth year. The sons of 
the family are James Allen; Thomas, of Fresno; C'liarles F., of Ifol- 
lister; and William, of Phoenix, Ariz. The daughters are Missouri 
A. Kirkland, of Arizona ; Elizabeth Campbell, of Sultana ; Mary 
Smoot, of Cochran; and Martha Morris, of Orroyo Grande. 

When he was ten years old James Allen Bacon accompanied his 
parents to Arkansas, where he was educated in a log school house. 
He drove a team to Tucson, Ariz., and remained there a year, driving 
a stage for Butterfield over a route east from Tucson some eighty 
miles, changing horses every ten hours at stations twenty miles apart. 
While thus em];)loyed he was twice attacked by Indians, but was saved 
by his swift horses. One of the red-skinned parties was in war paint. 
At another time his presence of mind enabled him to save his own life 
and that of his ]iassengers as well. When he made his last trip as 
stage driver. Indians formed in line across the road and demanded 
whisky and tobacco. The ])assengers handed out their bottles, and 
while the Indians were drinking Mr. Bacon put whip to the horses and 
soon had the whole ])arty out of danger. 

Mr. Bacon's observations and experience would be interesting 
could they be given in full. lie told of having seen a monument on the 
east border of Tulare county which was erected by General Scott in 
the early '50s. He was acquainted with the Dalton brothers, with 
Sontag and Evans and with James McKinney, and saw James 
McCreary hanged at Visalia. He said the condemned man had said he 
would never die with his boots on and ])ulled them off before going to 
the gallows. Mr. Bacon built a dwelling in the Orosi district, between 
Centerville and Visalia. He rode back and forth in all directions over 
this country before there was any fruit or grain raised here. He 
homesteaded one hundred and sixty acres of land east of \"isalia and 
bought some railroad land. After he had gone into the sheep busi- 
ness, he met a man from Visalia to whom he traded for a horse a claim 
to one hundred and sixty acres of land whei-e Orosi now stands, which 
is worth now .$500 an acre. In tlie period 18(50 to 1870 he saw thou- 
sands of antelope and wild horses and many Indians, and on Fish 
slough and other swami^s saw numy elk. Bear were ]ilentiful on the 
plains and many of them were killed for meat. Mr. Bacon himself 
killed fifty bears and was in many a desperate bear fight. 

The Bacon family came on to California in 1859 and for a time 
James was employed by his uncle, James Fielding l-Jacon, in the stock 
business. In that same year he went to the mines at Princeton, in 
Maijposa county. After having been emiiloyed five years there, at 



832 TULARE AND KINGS (X)UNTIES 

Marysville and elsewhere, be weut to Orosi and Iniilt his father's 
house. Later he again helped his uncle for many years in hog and 
stock-raising. He also found lucrative employment in driving stock to 
the southern mines. After the organization of the California Raisin 
Growers' Association he was active in its development. 

On October 17, 1880, in Tulare county, Mr. Bacon married Sarah 
Edniiston, a native of Calaveras county, and a daughter of N. B. 
Edmiston. 'IMie family home was at Orosi aftei- January, 1889. Mr. 
Bacon died July 3, 1912, in Fresno. His wife passed away, in her 
forty-seventh year, March 17, 1901. She was a member of the Metli- 
odist Episcopal church. Following are the names of five children who 
survive : Alice Maud, married William Mackersie, of Dinuba, and has 
two sons, Gerald Edward and William Kenneth; Thomas Allen, of 
Dinuba, married Cora Tracy and has one son, James Emerson; Edith 
Theodate married R. J. Reed and has one sou, John Allen; Jessie 
Ethel is the wife of Jesse Furtney; and Elsie Viola. In his political 
affiliations Mr. Bacon was a Democrat, and was a member of the 
county central committee and was also elected and served two terms 
as a school trustee. As a man of public spirit he always took a helpful 
interest in the communitv. 



GEORGE EDWARD ALLEN 

Near Lena, in Stephenson county. 111.. George Edward Allen was 
born January 27, 1850, a son of James Allen, who was born in Canada 
au'l (lied in Illinois in 1855. The widow renuirried two years later and 
died in Illinois also. For a short time George E. Allen attended the 
common school and when about twelve years old became self-support- 
ing. In 1869 he went to Knox county. 111., and there followed coal 
mining for five years, at that time moving to Iowa and farming in 
Polk and Jasper counties. From there he went to Turner county. 
S. Dak., in 1883, and in July, that year, the crops were destroyed by 
a hail storm. After four years in Dakota, some of which were not as 
strenuous as the first one, Mr. Allen came to Tulare county, Cal.. set- 
tling on White river, and for eighteen years harvested crops of wheat 
that ranged from one-half a sack to six sacks an acre and sold at 
sixty-eight cents to $1.47 a hundred pounds. He located on his present 
homestead in 1906, when he bought forty acres of unimproved land, 
four acres of which are now in Marshall strawberries and two acres 
in orange nursery trees of one season's growth. His strawberry plants 
are bearing fairly well and in a recent season he sold eleven thousand 
baskets at an average ]irice of seven cents a basket. His Muscat grapes 
are just beginning to bear. He has fourteen acres of them, intends 



TrLARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 833 

soon to set eleven acres to orange trees, and now has eight acres in 
peach trees just bearing. 

Mr. Allen married in 1870 Margaret Morgan, in Knox count}', 
111., and has two children living, Maliel B. and William M. One daugh- 
ter, Jennie, died in childhood in Dakota. Ma))el B. married Henry 
Ward, of Tulare county, and they liave a son named Allen Ward. In 
])nlitical alliliations Mr. Allen is Reiiublican, thorouglily devoted to 
the principles of his party, and as a citizen he is public-spirited to a 
degree that insures his usefulness to the conmiunitv. 



JOHN WALTON BOZEMAN 

In Hinds county. Miss., August 31, 1836, was born John Walton 
Bozeman, who has lived in Tulare county about as long as any surviv- 
ing pioneer. His grandfather, Howell Bozeman, Imilt the first state 
house, at Milledgeville, Ga., and eventually moved to Mississippi, 
accompanied bj' members of his family and others. Thomas Jefferson 
Bozeman, who was John W'alton's father, remained in Hinds county. 
Miss., until after his son was born and he left his wife Rachel Par- 
ker, buried there. In 1842 the family moved to Louisiana, where the 
father married Miss Eliza Ford, of which union two children, William 
and Mary Near, survive. In 1849 they settled in Texas and in 1854 
crossed the plains in a i)arty with ox-team outfits to California, where 
he became engaged in farming on Kings river and mining in Mari- 
tiosa and Kern counties, i)utting u]> the first tent on Puso creek flats, 
where he mined, kept a boarding house, and did freighting. 

J. W. Bozeman 's recollections of that cross-country trip would 
be inteiesting reading could they all be put into print. He helped to 
bury the liodies of members of the Oatman family, who had been nmr- 
dered ))y Indians on their way from Texas to California. Two of the 
Oatman children were captured by the savages and one of them was 
rescued later by friends. Usually emigrants were safe so long as 
goodly numbers of them kept together, but there was .great ]ieril foi' 
any who became sejiarated from their trains. 

It was when he was about eighteen years old that Mr. Bozeman 
arrived in California, passing through Tulare county along the immi- 
grant trail, and on October 12, 1854, they stopped on Kings river. His 
opportunities for education had been very liinited, as almost from 
childhood he had i-idden after cattle or worked in the cotton field. 
In 1864, in San Bernardino county, he married Miss Susan Hendrey, 
born January 16, 1842, in Indiana, daughter of Isaac Hendrey, who 
was a pioneer of Oregon. He was a descendant of old Irish families 
and his wife was Miss Mary White of Indiana. Mrs. Bozeman passed 



HU TULARE AXJ) KINGS TUUNTIES 

away iu Kings county in 1898, wliile the lauiily were living near Ilan- 
ford. She was the mother of a large family of children, all natives of 
California, eight of whom grew to maturity and married, viz. : Preston 
Leander, of Exeter; Julia A., married to L. H. Byron, of Lemoore; 
Armazila U.. wife of Vj. C. Nowlan, of Exeter; Jesse D., of Hanford; 
Melissa A., wife of J. Bloomhall, of Alhamhra ; John W., of Fresno; 
Hattie, married to Warren Hawley, of Lindsay; and Rachel, wife of 
Ralph Berridge, of Porterville. Three children died in infancy, and 
Chester W. passed away in early childhood. The father of Mrs. Boze- 
man lived to the age of ninety-six years, and one of his daughters, 
Mrs. Cleghorn, now lives at Highlands, San Bernardino county. Two 
of his sons are making their home at the Soldiers' Home at Eugene, 
Oregon. 

After his marriage Mr. Bozeman went into the shee]) business 
and was successful for about twenty years, keeping most of the time 
about ten thousand head. He became the owner of three hundred 
acres of land on Kings river, where he settled in 1854, with his father, 
and later rented large tracts on which lie sowed grain. His last wheat 
crop was garnered from thirty-five hundred acres. He disposed of all 
his holdings in Kings county and lives with his children, and has been 
a resident of Porterville since January, 1911. He has always been an 
active, influential and ])ulilic-spirited citizen. 



MARTIX WTRHT 

In that wonderful European republic, Switzerland, Martin "Wirlit, 
who now lives a mile and a quarter northwest of Exeter, Tulare 
county. Cal.. was born in 1857. When he was eleven years old he came 
to the United States and made his way to Springfield, 111., where he 
lived a year, and from that time until 1879 his home was in Missouri. 
He went from Missouri to Kansas, from Kansas to Wyoming, and then 
back to Kansas, and in 1896 from Kansas to California, living six 
years in Wyoming and six years in Kansas. 

In Tulare county Mr. Wirht's first place of residence was Porter- 
ville, from which town he moved to his present home near Exeter, 
where he has fifteen acres bearing oranges, five acres under grape- 
vines and twenty-five acres on which he grows vines and trees. His 
navel oranges are of fine variety and are usually among the earliest in 
his vicinity to reach the market. When he took the ranch in hand it 
was raw and without imiirovements, but he lias provided it with a 
house and other buildings and developed it into one of the best linme- 
steads in the Exeter district. 

The marriage of Martin Wirht and Eliza Meredith, a native of 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 835 

Missouri, has resulted in the birth of five children, all of whom were 
educated or are being educated in Tulare county. Tlieir oldest 
daugliter is married. The parents of both Mr. and Mrs. Wirlit have 
passed away. Mr. Wirht is regarded as a self-made man who richly 
deserves the success that he has won. He has always been too busy 
to take up political work and is not ambitious for office, but he is 
public-s])iritedly helpful to all worthy interests of tlie community. 



RICHARD BURKE 

This is the life story of a man whose activities were begun as a 
drummer boy in the Federal army in the Civil war. Born in Clay 
county. 111., July 5, 1849, he was only about twelve years old when the 
war began. He enlisted at Louisville, 111., December 21, 1863, in Com- 
pany K, Forty-eighth Regiment, Illinois Volunteer Infantry, which 
was attached to the Third Brigade, Second Division, Fifteenth Army 
Corps, with which the name of Gen. John A. Logan is identified. The 
first fight in which he participated was that of Buzzard's Roost, at 
Resaca, Ga. From that time on until the end of the war he took part 
in many hotly contested engagements of greater or less iniportance, 
participating in Sherman's march to the sea; his more immediate com- 
manding generals being successively Ilarland, Hazen, Oliver and Rice. 
It was not long after his service began that he became a soldier in 
active dutv. He was discharged August 15, 1865, and mustered out at 
Springfield. 

Returning to Clay county. 111., Mr. Burke remained there until 
April 20, 1870, when he started for California, arriving in Sto^ckton, 
Cal., May 1, that year. He then came to Tulare county and remained 
until April, 1872, when he located in Squaw Valley, homesteadiug one 
hundred and sixty acres of land which he has impi'oved and on which 
he now lives. By subsequent purchase he has come to own three 
hundred and fifty-two acres. He farms about one hundred acres, the 
rest of his land being under jiasture and timber, and keeps a1)out one 
hundred head of stock. 

On August 5, 1868, in Louisville, 111., Mr. Burke inarriod Miss 
Mary R. Drake, a native of Ohio. Her parents, also of Ohio l)irth, 
came to California in 1870, being members of Mr. Burke's party. 
They found the country very new and were oliliged to go thirty-fivi' 
miles for their mail, wJiich they got at Visalia. They paid eighteen 
cents a jjouud foi- brown sugar by the half ban-el. and other things 
in proportion. Children as follows were born to Mr. and Mrs. Burke. 
Anna G., Floy I., Elva Lewis, Alraeda J., John W., Harry A., Oliver 
M., Viola L., and Harold R. Anna G. married C. C. Traweek. Flov I. 



836 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

is Mrs. W. A. Hampton. Elva Lewis is the wife of L. B. Holcombe. 
Aimeda J. is the wife of Harlan Mclntire. John W. married Miss Jean 
Lawresten, formerly a teacher. Harry A. married Myrtle M. Akers. 
Oliver M. married Irene Fleming, who was a teacher. Viola L. mar- 
ried T. E. Byrd. Harold R. is a graduate of Heald's Business College 
of Fresno and is employed in that city. Mr. and Mrs. Burke have 
thirteen grandchildren. 

In his politics Mr. Burke is Republican. He is a member of At- 
lanta Post, G. A. R., at Fresno. 



A. M. DREISBACH 

At Tiffin, Oliio, April 20, 1852. was born A. M. Dreisbach, who is 
now a farmer and a minister of the United Brethren church at Exeter, 
Tulare county, Cal. His fatlier, a native of Pennsylvania, came to 
Ohio in his youth; he married a daughter of a German, and died in 
1876. Mr. Dreisbach 's mother has been dead many years. 

A. M. Dreisbach remained at Tiffin until he was twenty-five years 
old, and there he secured a primary education which he supplemented 
by a course at the Eastman Business College at Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 
He had just completed his studies at that institution when he was re- 
called to liis home by the death of his father. His earlier labors were 
all on the ranch, but eventually he entered the ministry. From his old 
home in Ohio he went to Kansas, and a year later went up into Iowa. 
From there he returned to Kansas, and he went thence to Utah. About 
eighteen years ago he came to California and settled at Exeter, where 
he now has a beautiful ranch of twenty-five acres, his principal crop 
being oranges. This property he has acquired by industry and econ- 
omy and those other personal qualities whicli are the fundamentals 
of the success of the self-made man. 

In 1878 Mr. Dreisbach married Miss Elizabeth Bollinger of Ne- 
braska, who has l)orne her husband eight children, three of whom, 
Clara, Jolm Wesley and Hattie, have died since the family came to 
California. The others are Minnie, Nellie, Harvey, Grace and Roy. 
The latter is a student in the high school at Exeter. Minnie married 
Rev. J. L. Hanson in 1909; he is pastor of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church South at LeGrand, Cal. They have one child. Margaret. 
Nellie married T. W. Harvey, a furniture dealer at Los Angeles. The 
others are at home. Mr. Dreisbach is patriotic and public-spirited, 
interested in the political issues of the day. especially solicitous for the 
cause of temperance. He has held public office, but he does not affiliate 
with anv secret order. 



TULARK AND KINGS COUNTIES 837 

SAMUEL LAVERNE KENNEY 

Back iu Tennessee in Greene county, Samuel Laverne Kenney, 
who now lives three miles southeast of Orosi, in Tulare county, Cal., 
first saw the light of day in the year I860. He lived there witli his 
parents until he was seven years old, then tiie family moved to Mis- 
souri aud located in Pineville, McDonald county, where the elder Ken- 
ney farmed sixteen years. It was iu 1886 that Samuel h. came to 
Tulare county, within the borders of which he has since had his home, 
in the Alta district. The country round about was then a vast wheat- 
field, without trees or fences, and stock roamed at will in the swamps 
and hills. He now has on his homestead eighty acres of fine land, 
eighteen acres of which are in Malaga grapes, ten in peaches, ten in 
miscellaneous orchard trees, and the balance under pasture. His 
vineyard and orchard are just coming into bearing. He keeps enough 
horses to work his ranch and raises a few hogs each year. He has a 
four-year-old grove of eucalyptus trees. 

The parents of Mr. Kenney were James D. and Nancy (Goodin) 
Kenney, natives of Tennessee. The mother died in Missouri and Mr. 
Kenney came to Tulare county in 1901, where he passed away in De- 
cember, 1912. They had children named Ebie, Wroten, Bruce R., 
Samuel L., C'allie, and Ida. Bruce R. married Lotta Scott, who bore 
him three children, Raljih, Laverne, and Goldie. With the excejition 
of Samuel L. and Ida the others have passed away. 

As a citizen Mr. Kenney has many times and in many ways dem- 
onstrated his public spirit by lending generous aid to movements for 
the uplift and development of the community. Politically he is a So- 
cialist. 



JOSIAH M. FERGUSON 

A long and useful career which has figured prominently in national 
as well as civic affairs has identified Josiah M. Ferguson as one of the 
most valued citizens of his country and his service in the Civil war 
supplemented by active participation- in the development of Tulare 
coimty has marked him a stanch patriot. In the state of Georgia, iu 
the heart of the Sunny South, Josiah M. Ferguson was born March 
25, 1843, son of Champion and Rachel (Dackett) Ferguson, the former 
an old Georgia planter, and a native of Kentucky, his wife being a 
native of Georgia. 

Josiah M. Ferguson was rear(>d and educated in his native ])lace 
and learned much about the cultivation of the soil. In 1863 he made 
his way through the mountains and enlisted in Company G, Tenth 



838 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Tennessee Cavali'v, serving in that company until lie received his dis- 
charge. Soon after the war he removed to Tennessee, and there, 
October 20, 1872, he married Miss Parthenia C. Cundiff, a native of 
that state. From Tennessee, in 1875, they came to Tnlai'e county, Cal., 
and homesteaded one hundred and sixt)' acres of laud which Mr. Fer- 
guson developed into a good farm, on which he lived until 1904, when 
he moved to Porterville, and passed away in 1909. He helped to 
establish the postoffice at Poplar and served as postmaster one year. 
He was a man of public spirit, ready at all times to do anything in 
his power for the advancement of the interests of his fellow-citizens 
whom he held iu warm affection as friends and neighbors. He aided in 
l)ui]ding the Poplar ditch, ran the first water, and was president of the 
company. Fraternally he affiliated with the Masons and was a mem- 
ber of the G. A. R. He was a Republican in ]iolitics. 

The parents of Mrs. Ferguson were Thomas and Mary (Grass) 
Cundiff, natives of Virginia and descended from old and honorable 
Southern families. She bore her husband eight children, three of them 
native sons and four native daughters of California. All of them sur- 
vive except James, who was drowned at Oakland in 1901. Cordelia, 
the eldest, liorn in Tennessee, was nine months old when her parents 
came to California. She married Fletcher Martin and is living in Tu- 
lare count>'. The others were Dora, Mrs. George Futrell, and Cora, 
Mrs. William Walker (twins), Mary, wife of Arthur Hayes, Temiia. 
married to Ernest Ridgeway, James, Thomas and Fletcher. The two 
last mentioned are in business at Porterville, Cal. Mrs. Ferguson has 
five grandsons and five granddaughters. She owns a half-section of 
fine land near Poplar, which was their old homestead. A woman of 
strong cliaracter, whose good influence is manifested in the lives of her 
children, she is fortunate in being able to pass her declining years in 
association with friends who honor her for her sake and for her hus- 
band's and regard her with gratitude for many kindnesses whicli she 
has rendered them. 



MARTIN CLICK 

Descended in the jiaternal line from old families of Germany, 
where his father, Peter Click, was born, "Mart" Click, who lives ten 
miles west of Porterville, Tulare county, is a native of Stark county, 
Ohio, where he opened his eyes to the world June 18, 1844. He spent 
his l)oyhood and youth in attending public schools and helping his 
father on the farm. In 1864, when he was twenty years old, he came 
to California. Stopping in Placer county, he worked for wages six 
years for B. C. Trefry, with whom he came to Merced county in 1870 



TULARP] yVND kings COUNTIES 839 

aud bought a liaud of sheep, nnniheriug about iiiue hundred lioad. 
They remained partners and stayed there until 1874, when they sokl 
out and came to Tulare county and again bought four thousand 
sheep on the plains. In 1881 Mr. Click bought his partner's interest, 
since which time he has been engaged indeijendeutly. In 1877, the year 
known to sheep men as the "hard year," he had ten thousand head, 
all of which he lost excejit about two thousand, by which misfortune 
he was lirought to practical ruin. In 1886, selling his sheep, he 
bought three hundred and twenty acres of land near WoodviUe and 
engaged in raising grain, cattle, horses and sheep, in which business 
he has continued up to the present time with a degree of success that 
has done much to make him forget his troubles of the past. His home 
has been on this ranch since that date, and he has witnessed the devel- 
opment of the county, in which he has been a participant. 

In 1883 Mr. Click nuirried Miss Hope Broughtan, a native of 
Pennsylvania. She has borne Jiim a son, Roy Click, who was educated 
at Stanford University, and who man-ied Miss Nellie Stockton, they 
residing with Mr. and Mrs. Click. Mr. Click, while entertaining pro- 
nounced opinions on all x^olitical and economic questions, has never 
acce])ted any oilce, but he is not without influence among his towns- 
men, who honor him as a pioneer, remembering that when he came 
to Tulare county it and the territory in all directions was wild, ojien 
country where any man could feed sheeji at will. When he went to 
Poi-terville there were only two stores there. Bear and deer were 
plentiful in the country round about and he often saw cattle come 
eight to ten miles for water. He has grown up with the country, 
whose development he has encouraged in many public-spirited wavs. 



JOHN BACON 

A native of Pennsylvania, John Bacon went to the old frontier in 
Ohio when lie was a small child. Thence he later emigrated to Missouri, 
and from Missouri he crossed the plains with ox-teams, in 185!). and 
made his way to the mines in Amador county, where he sought gold 
for a few months. In 18()() he came to Tulare county and engaged in 
cattle raising. Later he took u]) government land near Tulare city 
and still later he owned a ranch cast of Visalia, where he lived the 
closing years of liis life and passecl away August 18, 1911, aged 
eighty-nine years. He nuirried Margaret Hall, a native of Canada, and 
she I)ore him six children. Catherine, who was tlie third in order 
of hiith of the family, becanic the wife of B. S. A'elie in 1901. lie 
is a native of New York state, who came to California in 18!»l' and 
went into the insurance business at Tulare. He came to Visalia in 



840 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

1904 and established an insurance and real estate business here, which 
he manages while looking after his twenty-acre ranch on East Mineral 
King avenue, ten acres of which is producing peaches. Mrs. N'elie 
has an old chest, a bed quilt, some german-silver spoons and otiier 
valuable articles which her father brought across the plains witii him 
and which she prizes highly. The members of the family in ordei- of 
birth are: Mrs. George AV. Dailey; James; Mrs. B. S. A'elie; Alexander; 
Mrs. Levi Mathewson; Mrs. G. B. Ralph, and Mrs. A. J. Teague. All 
are residents of Tulare county with the exception of Mrs. G. B. Ralph, 
who resides in Stockton, Cal. 



WILLIAM FINDLEY 

On the Siberian river, Texas, William Findley was born February 
22, Washington's Birthday, 1851. When he was six years old his par- 
ents, John and Sarah J. (Masters) Findley, natives respectively of 
Missouri and Texas, brought him across the plains to California. The 
family was included in a party which came with ox-teams and had fre- 
quent trouble with Indians on the way. The savages often attemjited 
to stampede or run off their cattle, and even when they were driven 
away they managed to kill the animals. At times the emigrants, under 
protection of wagon stockades, fought long battles with their red- 
skinned foes, whose flintlock guns laid many a white man low. Ten of 
the party were killed by the Indians and Mr. Findley 's sister Martha 
died on the way out. The family came to Hackliy Ford in 1858 and 
started in the cattle business, locating in Tulare later in that year. In 
August, 1871, the grandfather, John Findley, who was the owner of 
two square miles of land in Drum Valley, was called to the door of his 
house by rol)bers, v\iio demanded his money, evidentlv lielieving that he 
had considerable of it on hand. His wife died in 1900. 

About 1907 William Findley located on his present homestead, 
where he has one hundred and thirty-three acres of grain and pasture 
land, a garden and about two thousand cords of wood in the tree. He 
keeps forty-five to fifty head of cattle and about half as many hogs. 
The elder Findley and his son are Democrats and their fellow citizens 
recognize them as men of public spirit. 

February 22, 1868, his birthday, Mr. Findley married, in the Sand 
Creek neighborhood, Miss Ellen Woodey, who has borne him ten chil- 
dren. John M. married Martha Dean and has four children, Blanche, 
Cecil, Gerald, and Inez. William J. married Mrs. Ida Strong, a daugh- 
ter of Stephen Gaster, at one time treasurer of Fresno county. Ivan 
married Susan Collier and their children are Aaron, Byron and Myrtle. 
Lee married Minnie Robinson and their children are Earl, Oswald and 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 841 

Melba. Martha iiiarried Jolm Dean aud is the mother of the following 
children, Carroll, Mand and Cleo. Callie A. married Levi Dean and 
their cliildren are Gilbert and Forest. Mary married Fred Kiner and 
their children are Clare E., Elsie, Harold and Denzelle. Ira, nnmar- 
ried, resides with William J. Findley. Myrtle is single and lives with 
her mother at Dinuba. Daisy married Daniel Tullie and resides at 
Orosi. 



CALVIN H. ANTRIM 

A respected and well-known citizen of Tulare county, now living 
retired from active cares in Orosi, is Calvin H. Antrim, whose career 
has been indicative of energy, thrift and perseverance. Born in C'lin- 
ton, Ohio, -April 12, 1827, he was a son of Hiram and Sarah (Whitson) 
Antrim, natives respectively of Virginia and Pennsylvania and who 
were the parents of a family of nine children. Receiving his educa- 
tion in the common schools of his locality, Calvin H. Antrim early 
learned the carpenter's trade, being quite proficient when he was but 
fourteen years old, and until 1895 that was his chief occupation. He 
left Ohio in March, 1866, going to Lewis county, Mo., where he pur- 
chased one hundred and twenty acres of land, on which he lived for 
eleven years with his sons, and followed farming. In November, 1877, 
he went to Lee county, Iowa, where he farmed and raised stock in 
partnership with Dr. Todd lantil he give it up on account of poor 
health. In October, 1889, he decided to come to Tulare county, Cal., to 
recui)erate, and buying seven town lots in Orosi he erected a residence 
on one which he sold in the fall of 1912 for hotel purposes. For thir- 
teen years he i-an the stage between Orosi and Cutler, carrying pas- 
sengers, mail, freight aud expi-ess, but since then he has lived in pi-ac- 
tical retirement, enjoying the well-earned rest from active life. 

On February 6, 1851, Mr. Antrim was married to Nancy Jane 
Collagen, a native of Greene county, Ohio, born October 20, 18.33, and 
children as follows were born to them: Hiram, A. Ellen, Luella, Lin- 
coln, Elmer, Susan H., Ira, Ida, Elbert, Cora, John W., and Lillian. 
Hiram, now deceased, married Belle Furtney and had five children. 
Luella mari'ied Andy Langwith and they were the parents of two chil- 
dren. Lincoln married Ida Smith, a native of Iowa, and they have 
two children. Susan II. married W. D. George. Elbei-t married Anna 
Powell and has two children. John W. married Dora Lovelace and 
they have one child. Lillian is the wife of Ed Combs. The othei-s 
have all passed away, and the mother's death occurred November 19, 
1908, at the age of sevent\-four years. 

In 1862 Mr. Antrim became a member of that famous militarv 



842 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES ' 

organization known to bistoiy as the Squirrel Hunters and partici- 
pated in the operations involving Morgan's raid into the North. He 
was honorably discharged from the service March 4, 1863. In politics 
he is Republican, and as a citizen he has always been public-spirited 
and helpful. 



FRANCIS M. MAYES 

A native of McDonald county, Missouri, Francis M. Mayes is a 
son of natives of that state and his parents were Richard and Elizabeth 
(Moffett) Mayes. He was born November 30, 1845, and came overland 
to California with his father with ox-teams when he was about twelve 
years old. The party, under direction of Captain Pogue, left their old 
homes in April, 1857, and consumed about the usual tinie in making the 
trip. There were about thirty wagons in the train and enough oxen 
for convenient relief. The party came by the North Platte, the Hud- 
son Cutoff, the Honey Lake route, and thence by way of Red Blutf. 
Along the Humboldt river in Nevada the Indians were very trouble- 
some and they had only a little while before massacred all the mem- 
bers of a large party of emigrauts, approi)riatiug the stock and run- 
ning the wagons into the river. Only two yoke of oxen were lost to 
Indians by Ca|)taiu Pogue 's party and they were later recovered. 
Everj^ precaution for safety was taken. Encamjjing, a stockade was 
formed and guards were ever on the alert. During the progress of 
the journey there was some sickness and two children were born to 
women of the party. After a brief rest at Red Bluff the journey was 
completed and Mr. Mayes and family went to a point near Santa Rosa, 
Sonoma county, where he lived from late in 1857 until in 1875. There 
the mother died in 1858, leaving three sons and four daughters, of 
which family but three survive. Coming to Tulare county the elder 
Mayes resided with his son until his death in 1878. 

Having come thus to California, Francis M. Mayes gained his edu- 
cation in public schools in Sonoma county and learned blacksmithing 
under his father's instruction. He settled in Antelope Valley in Tulare 
county, on one hundred and sixty acres of railroad land which in the 
course of events he was obliged to relinfjuish. But he moved his house 
onto another tract of one hundred and sixty acres in Sand Creek Gaji. 
which he purchased from the Southern Pacific Railway Com])any. 
Later he came into possession of two hundred aud forty acres of 
railroad land which he improved and on which he lived until in 1897. 
when he sold it and removed to Orosi, buying propei-ty there aud 
going into general blacksmithing. It was as a blacksmith that he 
busied himself during the succeeding eight years. When he first set- 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 843 

tied iu the Sand Creek Gap there was uo towusite nearer than Visalia, 
all trading and postottice business having been done at Visalia. Deer, 
bear, antelope, and other wild game was plentiful and much of the 
country round about was given over to the feeding of sheep. At the 
end of the period mentioned he sold out his interests at Orosi and 
bought forty-four acres on the Dinuba road, where he took up his 
residence and has since developed a line home ranch. The land was 
mostly planted to fruit. lie has ten acres of Malaga grapes, fifteen of 
wine grapes and five of Muscats. Eleven acres are given to peaches, 
his trees now being about six years old, and he has sixty orange 
trees, some miscellaneous fruit and several attractive palms. In 1911 
be sold for shipment sixty-two tons of Malaga grapes at $28 and $30 
a ton, grew ninety-eight tons of wine grapes on fifteen acres, pro- 
duced ten tons of Zinfandels to the acre, of which he has five acres, 
sold four and a half tons of dried peaches for ten cents a pound, and 
received $900 for wine grapes and the same amount for peaches. He 
keeps horses enough to work his ranch. 

Politically Mr. Mayes is a Democrat and for more than twenty 
years he has filled the office of school trustee. He and members of his 
family ai-e connnunicants of the Cumberland Presbyterian church. The 
lady who became liis wife was Miss Mary E. Faudre, a native of Cali- 
fornia, and she has borne him children as follows : Mattie, deceased, 
Frances E., Etta and Arthur, deceased, Melvin L., Oscar 0. and Edith, 
deceased (twins), Ella, and Clara. Frances E. became the wife of 
Victor Franzen, a native of Sweden, and they have two sons and three 
daughters. Clara married Fred G. Nelson, an Englishman by birth, 
and they are living in Tulare county and they have two sons and one 
daughter. 



STILES A. Mclaughlin 

The McLaughlin family, to which belongs Stiles A. McLaughlin, 
originated in Scotland. His grandfather, John McLaughlin, lived in 
Pennsylvania. His father was Williain Harrison McLaughlin and was 
a native of Pennsylvania, where he grew u\) and learned the trade of 
carriage maker, later removing to Ohio. Following his trade there for 
a short time he engaged in merchandising and various other ])ursuits 
with varying success. It was in Ashtabula county, Ohio, that Stiles A. 
was born January 3, 1852. When he was about ten years old his 
parents moved to Pennsylvania, and after a residence there of six 
years they went to Illinois, where they remained foi' a like period. 

The changes of time brought the younger McLaughlin to Califor- 
nia when he was about twentv-one vears old. He worked in Yolo 



844 TLTLxVRE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

county about a year, then came to Lemoore, Kings county, and soon 
afterward acquired a land claim half a mile south of that town. He 
relinquished it, however, and bought forty acres, bounded on one side 
by the city line, which he planted to fruit trees and retained until 
1902, wlien he sold it to advantage. He then bought forty acres west 
of the forty just referred to and eighty acres adjoining this last pur- 
chase. After having lived there six years, he sold forty acres of the 
property, retaining the eighty acres, forty of which is in vineyard, and 
moved to Lemoore. In these various real estate deals he was quite 
successful, gradually accumulating money and land until he has come 
to be considered one of the well-to-do men of, that part of the county. 
He is a director of the First National Bank of Lemoore and has been 
in one way or another identified with several interests of importance. 
His public spirit im})elled him to accept the nomination of his party 
for membership of the Board of Supervisors of Kings county. He 
was three times elected and served continuously from November, 1895, 
to December, 1906. 

Local lodges of Free & Accepted Masons, "Woodmen of the 
World and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows include Mr. 
McLaughlin in their membership. In 1876 he married Mary "Wright, 
daughter of Samuel "\A"right, a pioneer of 1868 in Kings county, who 
made his mark as a farmer and stockman. They have children as 
follows : "Wilmot "U'^right, of Lemoore ; Aimee, wife of Samuel McCor- 
kle, of Dinuba; Mary, who is a clerk in the ])Ostoffice at Lemoore; and 
Elmira, a student in the high school. In April, 1912, Mr. McLaughlin 
completed his comfortable brick residence on "West D street, which 
is up-to-date in every respect and adds greatly to the residence dis- 
trict of Lemoore, being most tasteful and attractive in design and 
appearance. 

The "Wright family of which Mrs. McLaughlin is a member came 
originally from England and were old Virginia settlers, coming to 
Ohio in the early jiart of the nineteenth century. Later they removed 
to Iowa, whence Mrs. McLaughlin's parents, Samuel and Amelia A. 
(Orton) Wright, came overland to California in 1849. Mrs. Wright is 
of Scotch ancestry and is now making her home at Lemoore, briglit 
and active at the advanced age of eighty-four. 



JOHN C. JOHNSON 

In the year 1845, on the sixth of January, John C. Johnson was 
born near Palmyra, in Marion county, Mo., a son of William Shirley 
and Ruth (Risk) Johnson. His mother was one of sixteen children of 
William Risk, an American officer in the Revolutionary war, whose 



TULARE AND KlXdS COUNTIES 845 

shoe ami knee l)iu'kles were iim iuto s^ix teaspoons and presented to 
her, as she was the yonngest daughter in tlie family, and this custom 
is ever since folh>wed from generation to generation, the relics de- 
scending to the yonngest (laughter. She was a native of Scott county, 
Ky., liut moved to Marion county, Mo., and during her first winter 
there saw tlie snow thi'ce feet dee]) on level gi'ound. She was early 
taught the ways of the housewife and often gave members of her 
family products of her spinning wheel and of her loom. Mr. Johnson 
has a bedspread which was woven by his mother from material of 
her own si)iuniug, nmch of the work having been done by the light of 
one of the old style grease lamps. By her marriage with William 
Shirley Johnson she had a daughter named Elizabeth, who died in 
infancy, and a son, John C, who is the immediate subject of this 
review. By her first marriage with James Johnson, a brother of W. S. 
Mrs. Johnson had five children, of whom Mary A. is living. William 
R. married Clementine Adams, who bore him three children, and by 
a second marriage, with Louisa Dale, he had two daughters. Sarah J. 
became the wife of William M. Allen and bore him five sons and a 
daughter. Joseph S. married Rebecca Allen and had five daughters 
and two sons, all of whom are living in California. James H. married 
Sarah Shanks, daughter of the Rev. John Shanks, a Christian minis- 
ter, and has two children. Mary A. married John W. Cason and has 
three sons and three daughters. 

John C. Johnson, who was taken early from Marion county to 
Lewis county. Mo., has not married. He spent much of his life on the 
farm his father bought of the United States government at $1.25 an 
acre, to which John C. added forty acres, making a ranch of four hun- 
dred and forty acres. His parents had sold their projierty in Ken- 
tucky before they came to Missouri. In 1905 and 19()() he sold off the 
Missouri homestead of the family and in the latter year came to 
Tulare county, Cal., and bought sixty-two acres, thirty-five of which 
is under vines, twenty acres devoted to peaches. He raises also some 
alfalfa which rims about a ton an acre to a cutting. He has taken 
thirty-five tons of dried peaches from his land in a season, which he 
considers the banner yield. In national politics Mr. Johnson is a 
Democrat. I»ut on local issues supports men and measures he considers 
for the pu))lic good. His interest in the general good is dee];) and 
abiding and he aids to the extent of his ability any movement pvo- 
posed for the benefit of the community. 



WILLIAM MICHARLIS 

In a conversation some time since someone said of this man, who 
lives in the vicinity of Poitcrvillc. Tulare countv. Cal., "He is a uTcat 



84(3 TULARE AND KTNGS COUNTIES 

booster- for Tulare county." This is a homely way of saying very 
briefly that Mr. Michaelis, though a native of Germany, is loyal to the 
community with which he has cast his lot and is solicitous for its 
Ijrogress as any native son of the soil could possibly be. He was born 
August 1. 1882, was educated in the Fatherland and patriotically 
served two years in the German army. Coming to the United States 
when he was twenty-four years old, he spent his first few years in Cali- 
fornia in working at the mason's trade. His father and mother came 
to this comity, too; the former passed away some years ago, and the 
latter is living in Tulare county. 

Martha Yolitz, born September 24, 1881, a native of Germany, 
became Mr. Miehaelis's wife in 1906. She has borne him two children, 
Willie, born January 4, 1908, and Martine, September 18, 1909. Soon 
after his arrival here Mr. Michaelis bought land, most of which is in 
grain, but seven acres are planted in pomegranate trees. His 
achievements, considering his opportunities, are noteworthy, the more 
so because they are the achievements of a self-made man, who in bis 
day of small things began in a small way and has risen steadily year 
by year until he ranks with the ]irosperous men of his community. 
Politically he is a Republican, interested in all that pertains to the 
public good. As a citizen he is always generously helpful to all move- 
ments for the common benefit. 



MICHAEL GILLIGAN 

A native of Ireland, Michael Gilligan was born November 1'). 
1830. After he had grown up he came to Canada, where he was em- 
ployed for a time in railroad work. Eventually, in 1871, he came to 
California and remained long enough to fall in love with the country, 
but went hack to Canada and lived there another year before settling 
here permanently. He located a quarter-section, his brother having 
located the same amount of land also. All of this land ultimately 
became his and by later purchase his holdings were increased to ten 
hundred and twenty acres. The sheep business subsequently engaged 
his attention, starting with three hundred and seventy-four head, and 
in time he owned as high as three thousand, but in 1877 he lost all but 
about seven hundred head. He was compelled to conform to the 
changes in farming and in stock growing with which the history of 
Central and Southern California has made every observer and reader 
familiar, and in time he sold out his sheep interests and gradually paid 
more and more attention to his land, which he is now handling iu a 
way that makes it very profitable. In 1911 he sold his sheep to his sou, 
who in turn sold them to a Frenchman who rents the Gilligan rancli. 



TUr.AKK AND KlXdS CorXTIES >S47 

In 1866 Mr. Gilligaii iiianied Nora Broderick, who was boru and 
reared in Canada. Of the ten children born to them six have passed 
away, the foiir remaining- being John E., Hngh, Michael T. and Nora. 
The latter married Jesse Riley. Mr. Gilligan is a public-spirited man 
who does his full share in promotion of the general uplift. His 
interest in the country in which he has cast his fortunes is all the 
deeper because his recollections of it in the days that are gone are 
those of a inoneer, who came to it when it was practically a wild state, 
with antelope and other game plentiful and Indians in evidence evcu-y- 
where. At that time there was only one house ))etween his liome and 
Visalia, twenty-five miles. 



BARNEY DE LA GRANGE 

The great grand-father of Barney De La Grange, of Orosi, Cal., 
came to America to fight for the independence of the colonies under 
command of General Lafayette, and hence Mr. De La Grange is a 
genuine Son of the American Revolution, -Rathout the necessity of 
joining the association of that name. Mr. De La Grange is one of the 
best known carpenters and orange growers in the district north of 
Orosi and a leading citizen of Tulare county, and was born in West 
Virginia April 16, 1858, a son of Omie and Elizabeth (McLain) De La 
Grange, respectively of French and Scotch ancestry. There were in 
his father's family nine children, five of whom were daughters. When 
Barney De La Grange was thirteen years old his parents moved to 
Ohio. He has in the course of his life been an extensive traveler in 
America, having covered the entire country from the Gulf of Mexico 
to the Great Lakes and from ocean to ocean. He married in West 
Virginia, Ida M. Lewis, a native of Kentucky, but of English par- 
entage, and she bore him a daughter, Lena Marie, who married 
George M. Daniels, of Oreston, Iowa, and has sons, James B. and 
[jh)yd. Mrs. De La Grange jiassed away in 18!)5. in West Virginia. 

In his youtli Mr. De La Grange learned tlie trade of carpenter 
and builder in which he was employed at ditferent times and at differ- 
ent places. He has recently bought a ran(;h of twenty acres north of 
Orosi and will plant it to navel, Valencia and other varieties of 
oranges. He has lived in Tulare county since 1909, having come here 
from Fresno county, where he had located eight years before. 

It has been seen that Mr. De La Grange is a descendant of a 
))atriot liero "of the days tliat tried men's souls." He is the pi'oud 
owner of a pair of slioe buckles once worn l)y his great-grandmother 
when slie danced witli George Washington at a famous ball in Phila- 
del]iliia. Of German silver, of l)eautiful design and fine woi-kmanshij). 



848 TFLARE AND KL\(iS ( OTXTIKS 

tliey are exceediiifily iuteresting relics. Omie De La Grange, father 
of Barney, was a veteran of the war of 1812 and served his country 
in the Mexican war. Mr. De La Grange's In-other William enlisted in 
Company B, P^leventh Virginia Infantry, April 1, 1862, and served 
three years in the Civil war. He is now a citizen of Selma. Politi- 
cally Mr. De Tja (i range is a Republican and his religions affiliations 
are with the Methodist church. Fraternally he is identilied with the 
Woodmen. 



JOHN B. HOCKETT 

The life of the late John B. Hockett, of Porterville, Tulare county, 
Cal., spanned the period from 1827 to 1898. He was born at Hunts- 
ville, Ala., and died at his California home. Prom Alabama he moved 
to Arkansas and in 1849 from there to California. His father. William 
Hockett, came here with him and they mined for some time on the 
Tuolumne river. Eventually Jolm B. Hockett went back east and 
remained over the winter, returning in 18."j4 and settling in Lagrange, 
Stanislaus county, where he operated a butcher shop. There in 18.")9 
he married Miss Margaret McGee, a native of Texas, born January 
27, 1840, who bore him seven children, all born in Tulare county, 
where they settled in 1859. At Yisalia he engaged in merchandising 
with Johnson & Jordan, and later with Reinstein & Clapp. In 1864 
he came to Porterville. He engaged in the hardware business in Por- 
terville about 1889, remaining three years, and was interested in the 
stock business for years. 

The parents of Mrs. Hockett made a nine months' journey with 
ox-teams across the plains to California in 1850, locating for a time 
at Los Angeles, thence to Santa Barbara, and in 1851 they settled at 
San Juan. In 1852 they were at Stockton and then settled between 
the Tuolumne and Stanislaus rivers near Knights Ferry. On the way 
across the plains the supply of food was exhausted and they were 
nourished only by eating boiled wheat. As if to add to their troubles, 
most of their stock died by the way. Mrs. Hockett states that when 
she first went to the site of Porterville the town, if such it could l)e 
called even by courtesy, consisted of one small shack and a tent. She 
has in her jiossession the first postoffice furniture ever used there, 
which was brought into requisition some years after she and her hus- 
band made their home there. In the early days of the locality there 
were nmny Indians near by, and some of them were not pleasant 
neighbors. 

Of the seven children of Mr. and Mrs. Hockett, tive are living. 
Benjamin F. lives near Hot S])rings; Robert Lee lives on White river; 



TL^LARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 849 

E. Barton is at Portula; Lena became the wife of R. il. Allen and 
resides at Roseville; and Dora married E. L. Scott, of Porterville. 
The old family home included land in Porterville now covered by part 
of the townsite. Mr. Hockett acquired land from time to time imtil 
his holdings were very large. His widow still owns five sections of 
grazing land in Tnlare and Kern counties and one city block in Por- 
terville, where has been the family residence since December, 1864. 
Mrs. Hockett 's recollections of Porterville and vicinitj' are very inter- 
esting. It was four years before her arrival that the river changed its 
course, but she had her experiences and witnessed some exciting scenes 
at the time of the Hoods of '67- '(18 and '6;)- 70 when the water covered 
almost the entire town and people had to go about in boats. 

Fraternally Mr. Hockett affiliated with the Masons and was 
Master of the Visalia lodge, ))eing member also of Royal Arch Chapter; 
the Odd Fellows and the Knights of Pythias. He was a busy and 
helpful man who counted his friends by scoi'es, his business associates 
by hundreds. His interest in the growth and prosperity of Porterville 
impelled him to do everything in his power for the welfare of the com- 
munity. He was instrumental in establishing the first school and the 
first church there, and served on the school .board. Since his death 
Mrs. Hockett proved uj) on his homestead and purchased three claims 
of one hundred and sixty acres each, and has imjiroved them; a well 
of four hundred and forty feet depth has been put down. When he 
passed away he was publically mourned by the people with whom he 
had lived so long and whom he had helped in so many ways. 



WILLIAM SW\\LL 

The life story of William Swall, one of the large landowners of 
the Visalia district and one of the honored citizens of Tulare county, a 
mode! of honesty and enterprise and foremost in all good works, is a 
most interesting one. He was born in LaSalle county. 111., November 
5, 1848, a son of Mathias and Elizabeth (Hayne) Swall, both natives 
of Germany, the father born in Berlin, January 24, 1824. 

In 1840, Mathias Swall came to America in an old-time sailing 
vessel and settled in LaSalle county, 111., where he married April l(i, 
1847. There he farmed till 1865, in the summer of that year coming 
to California by way of Panama. He remaim^l that winter on a farm 
near San Jose, and in the fall of 1866 settled near Tracy, San Joafpiin 
county. His land there he sold in 1871, when he went to Monterey 
county, and farmed and raised stock until in 1877, when he moved to 
Ventura county. Thence he went to Sherman, Los Angeles county, 
late in 1882. He farmed and conducted a dair\- almost to the time of 

49 



850 TULARE AND KINGS (JOUNTIES 

bis death in May, 1896. His widow still lives at Sherman. lu religion 
Mr. Swall was a Catholic, in politics a Democrat. 

First born of his parents' family of two daughters and nine sons. 
William Swall secured what education he could in the public school 
near his Illinois home. Later he attended school in Santa Clara 
county, Cal., and was for a term a student at the San Jose Institute. 
Meantime he had become a practical farmer of wide and accurate 
knowledge. In 1873 he homesteaded eighty acres of land in Tulare 
county and later bought land along the Tule river. In 1884 he moved 
to his i^resent farm of seventeen hundred acres, known as Deej) Creek 
Ranch, which as he has imjjroved it is one of the finest properties in 
the county, and has four hundred acres in peaches, prunes, pears, 
apples, plums, nectarines and English walnuts. He owns all in all 
seventeen huudred acres, and his extensive operations necessitate the 
renting of an additional thousand acres, which he devotes to stock and 
fruit. As a farmer he has been well-informed and up-to-date in all 
respects. He emjiloys on his ranch from thirty to fifty men. His 
dairy has an electric power plant for pumping water, and there is a 
similar plant for lighting his house and barns. The place is provided 
with an adequate and convenient water system. It is one of the 
notable alfalfa farms of the district, having six hundred acres set 
apart for that crop. 

From time to time Mr. Swall has diverted his energies from the 
farm to the town and he is a director of the Bank of Tulare, a 
director of the Tulare Co-operative Creamery Company, a stock- 
holder of the Tulare Telephone Company and a director in the Roch- 
dale stores of Tulare. He has been prominent in the promotion of irri- 
gation and was one of the originators of the Tulare Irrigation Dis- 
trict. Since 1903 he has been one of the directors of the district. A 
Republican, interested in all public questions but never an o'fice 
seeker, he has nevertheless been a director of the Elk Bayou school 
district. Mr. Swall married Emma Cole, born in Knox county, 111., a 
daughter of Asa Cole, a native of Ohio, who crossed the plains to Cali- 
fornia with his family in 1856 and located in Contra Costa countv. 
Several years later Mr. Cole went to Santa Clara county and in 1866 
he located near Tracy, San Joaquin county. In 1873 he came to 
Visalia, whence in 1888 he removed to Brentwood, Contra Cos+ 
county, where he jiassed away in the autumn of that same year. Mr. 
and Mrs. Swall were the parents of children as follows: George, who 
is a dairy rancher near Yisalia ; Newell, who is deceased ; Walter, who 
is also a dairy rancher near Visalia ; Arthur, who is superintendent of 
the Neuman ranch, south of Tulare; and William, Jr., who lives south 
of Visalia, not far from his father. Mr. and Mrs. Swall also have 
eleven grandchildren. 

Mr. Swall has been described as a prince of good fellows, always 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 851 

ready to lend a helping hand to those less fortunate than himself. The 
responsibilities of citizenship appeal to him forcefully and definitely. 
While his character is commanding he is eminently fair in all busi- 
ness transactions and is admired for his kindness, sympathy and good 
judgment. His loyalty to his family, to his friends and to his convic- 
tions has never been questioned. 



JOHN A. WILSON 

One of the leading cattle men of his district, John A. Wilson, who 
lives at No. 720 North Irwin street, Hauford, was born in 1862, in the 
part of Tulare county which is now Kings county, twelve miles north- 
east of the site of Hanford, a son of 0..L. and Rose J. Wilson. The 
elder Wilson came to California in 1848 and was a pioneer of 
pioneers. He mined in Placer county and on the Feather and Ameri- 
can rivers and after 1850 settled in the vicinity of Gilroy, where he 
farmed extensively until 1857. In that year he married and came to 
this part of the state. 

It was in the district schools of the days of his youth that John 
A. Wilson was educated. He began at seventeen, with some financial 
aid from his father, to fight the battle of life for himself. His career 
since then has been one of U])s and downs, but he has never gone down 
hopelessly and he is undeniably up at this time so well established 
that there is little ]irobability that he will suffer further disaster. 

In 1887 Mr. Wilson married Miss Mary Alcorn, of California, and 
their daughter is the wife of Marion Hefton, of Hanford. The Inde- 
pendent Order of Odd Fellows includes Mr. Wilson as one of the most 
valued members of its Hanford organizations, and he is popular not 
only with the brethren of the order but with the citizens of Hanford 
and Kings county generally. t^riendlv and oiitimistic, he lias a 
pleasant word for all whom he meets and a ready hand for the assist- 
ance of the general interests of the town. 



JAMES HOUSTON 

Noteworthy among tiie pioneer settlers of Tulare county was the 
late James Houston, for over forty years a respected and valued citi- 
zen of Visalia. The descendant of a long line of Southern ancestry, 
he was also a native of the Southland, having been born in Tennessee. 
During young manhood he located near Pocahontas, RaudolpJi county. 
Ark., this being at a time of an uprising of the Indians, and he val- 



852 TULARE AXD KlXCiS COUXTIES 

iantly took a baud in (jiiietiiig these (li.sturl)ances aud otliei- tr()ul)les 
that arose incident to border life. During the Sabine disturbances of 
1837 he enlisted in the United States army and as a lieutenant of the 
mounted gun militia of Arkansas rendei'ed a service that was a])pre- 
ciated, as was evidenced in the fact that at the time of his discharge 
he received the brevet of major. Mr. Houston was a second cousin to 
the famous Sam Houston of Texas, and no doubt inherited his 
intrepid spirit from the same source as did his celebrated relative. 

The marriage of James Houston united him with Frances Sebourn 
Black, a native of Virginia and the descandant of a prominent South- 
ern familj", being related to the Sebourns of South Carolina and to 
General Cobb, the latter a conspicuous figure in the Revolution. In 
1859 James Houston brought his family to California across the 
plains by means of ox-teams. For a short time he mined at Hang- 
town, now Placerville, but in the spring of 1860 he came to Tulare 
county and made settlement in Visalia. Purchasing land near town 
he made his home thereon until 1902, when his earth life came to a 
close, at the venerable age of ninety-three years. His wife survived 
him about three years, passing away in 1905 at the age of eighty- foui- 
years. Of the eleven children born to this worthy couple seven are 
living, as follows: Mrs. E. B. Townseud, of Visalia; Mrs. J. W. 
Oakes, also of Visalia ; Miss Thalia Houston; Mrs. R. A. Robertson, of 
Kinoinan, Ariz.; Mrs. Ed Graham, of Berkeley; Mrs. John Went- 
worth, of Globe, Ariz.; and Andrew, an extensive cattle rancher near 
Phoenix, Ariz. The four children deceased are: Maria, who was the 
wife of A. H. Glascock, a well known citizen of Tulare county; Sanmel 
T. • Mrs. Frances S. Chilson, and William, who was a well known 
attornev of Visalia. 



JOSEPH LEY 

In Seneca county, Ohio, January 27, 1852, was born Joseph Ijey, 
son of Andrew and Mary (Steinmetz) Ley, natives of Alsace Loraine, 
Germany. AVlien he was nine years old his family removed to Nolile 
county, Ind. There he grew up on his father's farm and he was 
employed as a farmer until he was twenty-four years old. In 187(5 he 
went to Iowa, farmed near Sioux City for five years, going from 
there to Thomas county. Neb., where for six years he followed farm- 
ing. He came to Tulare cormty in 1891 with little worldly goods 
besides an ax and a cross-cut saw. with which he was ready to make 
his living unless some better means should be at hand. He pros- 
pered by hard work and was enabled, eventually, to buy seventy-five 
acres of land at $3 an acre in Squaw Valley. Fresno county, and in 



TUJ.AKE AND KINGS COUNTIES 853 

1905 he luiught oue Imiulred acres more. His holdiugs consist oi' one 
hundred and seventy-five acres, located in Sqnaw Valley, which was 
so named hecause in an earlier day Indians often left their sqnaws 
there to await their return from hunting expeditions. He has ninety 
acres under cultivation and some of it has produced four tons of hay 
per acre, and in 1911 he raised twenty sacks of barley to the acre. The 
remainder of his tract is in pasture. He keeps horses for his own 
use and usually has on his farm about twenty head of cattle. All the 
improvements he installed on the place. 

Mr. Ley married, in Indiana, Miss Eftie Smith, of English liirth, 
whose parents had settled in Pennsylvania and moved thence to the 
Hoosier state. They have six children: John E., Martin M., Oliver, 
Mary, Rose Ann and Susan A. John E. married May Applegate and 
has a daughter and a son. Mary is the wife of Erauk ^^olf ; they have 
two sons and four daughters and their home is in Calaveras county. 
The others make their home with their ])arents. 

Politically Mr. Ley is independent of party affiliations. He has 
no great liking for i)ractical jiolitics, and one of the most vivid i-ecol- 
leetions of his boyhood days is of having gone to the ]iolls on election 
day to see and hear Northern and Southern symjiathizers wrangle 
over questions on which they were at odds. He and his family are 
members of the Catholic cluirch. 



JAMES WALLACE OAKES 

The Canadian family of Oakes, originally from France, had its 
first American representatives in New Brunswick. John W. Oakes 
died there at the advanced age of one hundred years. His sou, Ham- 
mond Oakes, was for many years a lumberman on the St. John's 
river, then located near Port Ryerse, where he farmed and raised 
stock, j)ros]iering as a stock-raiser near Port Ryerse. He became the 
ownei- of three farms, and died aged eighty-five years. He married 
Miss Isabelle Hannnon, who was descended from old New England 
families, and located as a farmer and stockman near New London. 
She died aged sixty-eight years. Of their eleven children, only five of 
whom are living, James Wallace Oakes, fifth in order of nativity, was 
the only one who came to California. He was born in Canada West, in 
1836, and reai-ed on his father's farm. He was not only well edu- 
cated in a literary way, but was given practical training which was 
beneficial to him as long as he lived. He came to the United States 
in 1855 and stopped near Sabula, Jackson county, Iowa, until the fol- 
lowing spring, when he bought one hundred and eiglity acres of 
))raii-io ami tiinbci- land in Harrison county. Mo., which he pi-occcdcd 



854 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

to lireak and improve, oue of bis first purchases for his farm havinu- 
been a yoke of oxen. In the spring of 1857 he was employed by 
Upton Hayes as driver of a freighting team between Fort Leaven- 
wortli and Camp Floyd. Reliuquisliing tliat employment, be went to 
Salt Lake, Utah, and from there be and fifteen others set out for 
California by way of Car.son, Nevada, but at Genoa they sold tbeii- 
ox-teams, and came the rest of the way on mule back. lie uiined at 
Placerville, in Nevada county, and at Marysville until 1868, then came 
to Tulare county and rented a ranch of B. G. Parker, on Elbow Creek, 
where be liegan farming on a scale large for that time. He con- 
ducted three farms, meanwhile improving bis own ranch, o]ierating 
altogether about seven hundred acres. He also operated a ranch 
owned by his wife. Mill Creek and Packwood Creek and a ditch which 
he and others constructed all traverse this property, about one hun- 
dred and thirty acres of which was devoted by "him to alfalfa, the bal- 
ance having been given over to dairying. At one time he owned 
eighty-five milch cows. Toward the end he leased this ranch foi- 
dairy purposes, furnishing the stock. He bad also a stock ranch of 
twenty-two hundred acres, about thirty-five miles east of Visalia, on 
which he raised cattle and horses. 

Fraternally Mr. Oakes affiliated with the Ancient Order of United 
Workmen. Politically he was a Democrat, never shirking the respon- 
sibilities of citizenship, but never consenting to become a candidate for 
office. However, he was for two years a deputy sheriff under Shei'it¥ 
Balaam and later for three years a deputy United States marshal 
under Marshal Franks. The duties of the last-mentioned jiosition 
included the settlement of the Mussel Slough troubles of the Southern 
Pacific Raihoad Comjiany and settlers on its land in this vicinity and 
demanded great tact and diplomacy, for the people were naturally 
suspicious of anyone attemiiting an adjustment of the dispute. F)efore 
undertaking the work, Mr. Oakes gained the consent of the railroad 
company to exercise his own discretion, and he soon won the con- 
fidence of the land claimants and brought about amicalile settlement 
of all questions in controversy and returned to private life with the 
commendation of all with whom be bad business dealings. 

The lady wlio became the wife of Mr. Oakes was Mrs. Margaret 
I. (Houston) Allen, a native of Arkansas, whose first husl)and. W. B. 
Allen, came to California in 1857 and settled in Mariposa county, but 
later became a stock-raiser in Tulare county, where he passed away 
July 26, 1867. Her son, William Byron Allen, is engaged in farming 
on a ranch of two hundred and twenty acres, two miles east of 
Yisalia, and owned by himself and bis mother. Mr. Oakes died De- 
cember 4, 1909. 



TULARE AND KINGS Cn)UNTIES SSf) 

M. L. CRAMER 

'I'liis active and ])i-<),i>ressive citizen of Sj)rin,i>ville, (*al., was born 
in 1S()4 near Cottas^e ])ostoffice, Tnlare connty. one of the early set- 
tlements in that jiart of tlie state. In ISd.) his ])arents moved to 
Mountain View, on the north fork of tlie Tnle, and continued to reside 
there until 1887. When lie was a small hoy there was no school near 
his home, hut one was available to him there when he was nine years 
old and he attended it in 187l' and in 187o. His life has been a Inisy 
and useful one and he has had to do with many interests of imnor- 
lance. As a machinist lie has lieen emj)loyed in responsible places 
here and there. Since locating in Springville he has worked at Ins 
trade as occasion has otTered, giving' attention, meanwhile, to other 
business matters also. His activities in connection with the Lindsay 
Planing mill are matters of public knowledge. Fraternally he affiliates 
with the Porterville lodge of Free and Accepted Masons, hlis ex- 
perience in this jiart of the state dates back to the days when deer 
were plenty in the woods and wild game was to lie found everywhere. 
He has seen the country settled and improved and villages spring up 
on every hand and quickly develop into cities of more or less impor- 
tance. In all this growth, he has taken the interest of a public- 
spirited man. As a member of the local school board he has done 
not a little to advance the efficiency of the i)ublic schools. 

In 1887 Mr. Cramer married Miss Mae Baker, a native of Kan- 
sas, who has borne him six children: Morris, Bessie, Frank, ^"i()let, 
Eleanor and John. Mr. Cramer's father, J. K. Cramer, a native of 
Pennsylvania, came to California in 1851, crossing the plains in the 
slow and dangerous wa\ then in vogue. Taking up land which 
eventually proved to be railroad property, he suffered disap])ointment 
and loss in lieing compelled to forfeit it. His wife, Eleanor Ott, a 
native of Ohio, eanje overland with her parents in 1850, and they 
were manied at Petaluma, Cal., in 1857. 



HON. ALLEN J. AinVELL 

The name abo\e will be recalled as that of one who as lawyer, 
journalist, legislator and man of affairs was long prominent in Tulare 
county. The late Allen J. Atwell was born at Pharsalia, Chenango 
county. N. Y.. April 16, 1836, and died at Visalia November 21, i8!)l. 
His parents were Daniel L. and Mehetabel (June) Atwell, both 
natives of the Em])ire State. When he was ten years old his family 
removed to Wisconsin, an<l after a ])rei>aration in the ])ublic schools 
he became a student at the Lawrence I'niversity at .\ppleton. Wis., 



856 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

gradnatiiin witli lirst honors from the first class of that university. 
Because of alphal)eti('al precedence his name lieaded the membership 
list of the class. 

The day after graduation, Mr. Atwell went to Nebraska, wliere 
he read law a year under competent direction. In the early 'ods he 
crossed the ])lains to California, and after stopping for a time in 
San Diego he came to Visalia, where he was soon afterward admitted 
to the bar and where in due course of events he gained a place in 
history as the orator who delivered the first Fourth of July oration 
at that county seat. He succeeded as a general practitioner of law, 
was made district attorney of the coranty and was elected to represent 
Tulare county in the legislature of California. He won much success 
as prosecuting attorney, several important cases having fallen to his 
management during his term of service, and as an assemblyman the 
records show that he not only achieved distinction on the floor of the 
house, but did important and patriotic work as a member of com- 
mittees. He was for a time owner of the Visalia Times, which under 
his control was a local newspaper of much influence. During another 
l^eriod he owned and operated a lumber mill near Mineral King, and 
among his possessions at one time was Atwell's Island, in Tulare 
lake, where he raised cattle and hogs. For some years he was asso- 
ciated in the ])ractice of law with N. O. Bradley of Visalia. In his 
long and useful career he was identified from time to time with 
various local organizations, and as a citizen he was notalily ])ublic- 
spirited. 

In 1861 Mr. Atwell married Miss Mary M. Van Epps, a native of 
Illinois, who survives him, and they were the parents of nine children : 
Mary, wife of F. M. Creighton ; Arthur J. ; Nellie, wife of B. J. Ball, 
of Visalia ; Irving, who is dead ; Clarence C. ; Allen L. ; Paul ; Ethel, 
who is the wife of Hugh McPhail ; and Lizetta, who is Mrs. E. 
Martin. 



HENRY CHRISTOPHER ROES. 

A native of Hanover, Germany, Henry Christopher Roes, who 
now lives three and a half miles southeast of Dinuba in Tulare. county, 
Cal.. was born November 10, 1835. He received the usual common 
school education of the ]ilace and time and when he was in his four- 
teenth year came over seas to New York. There he attended night 
school and was for six years a clerk in a grocery store. Then he 
came to California by way of the Isthmus of Paiiama, sailing to 
Aspinwall, crossing the Isthnms on foot and transporting his baggage 
on a mule, and from Panama came to 'Frisco on a ship that had come 



TULAKE AND KTNdS COUNTIES 857 

around the Horn. The voyage from Panama to San Francisco con- 
sumed eight days and was not marked by any accident. After a 
short stay in 'Frisco Mr. Roes went to Stockton, where during the 
ensuing eighteen months lie was proprietor of a genei'al store. Then 
for three years he was mining in Calaveras countx', where he and a 
man named Hiues staked out a claim and were measurably successful, 
taking out some days as miu-h as $50 worth of oi'e, but not lieing 
experienced miners they lost in one way or another about as nmch 
as they made. Returning to Stockton, Mr. Roes operated a grocery 
six months, then went to La Grange, where he mined until 1868. 
Early in that year he went to Europe, and returning he made a tour 
of the Southern states and in November was in South California when 
General Grant was elected president the tirst time. About two years 
later he started for San Francisco by way of Panama. He arrived 
in San Francisco in February, 1870, and soon went to Stanislaus 
county, where he was for three years a merchant. His next place of 
residence was Merced, which was then coming into prominence by 
reason of the building of the railroad. There he dealt in lumber. 
It was in Merced that he married Miss Louisa Snedeker, of French 
descent and a native of New Orleans, in 1874. She bore him two 
children, Edna L. and Edna Louisa. The latter has passed away. 
Edna L. married W. E. Rushing, a native of Texas. Mrs. Roes died 
in 1887. 

Mr. Roes sold his lumber yard two years before he was married 
and started in the sheep business in the Smith mountain district. At 
one time he was the owner of twelve thousand head of Spanish 
Merinos, had other important interests and was in receipt of a salary 
of $125 a month and exyjenses as manager. The coimtry all about him 
was in a state of nature. Standing on the mountain with a spy glass, 
he could see sheep, cattle, horses and antelope for many miles in every 
direction. Many herds of antelope contained as many as fifty or 
sixty animals and he killed many antelojie for meat. Deer and bear 
were numerous in the mountains. He had but few neighbors and 
one of them, in his early days there, was Mr. Edmonson. He was in 
the shee]> business eighteen years and made many thousand dolhii's. 
He left it to engage in wheat growing and eventually liomesteaded 
and improved land. The Inisiness had not been without its disadvan- 
tages. Many of his shoe]! had been killed by bear and his loss by 
accident and disease was sometimes heavy. He was twenty-two miles 
distant from Yisalia. his nearest market town, whicii lie had 
fre(|uent]y to visit foi- many purposes, on one memorable occasion 
running his horse nearly the whole distance. The journey to and fro 
consumed a day or more lime. There being no roads a part of the 
way was necessarily diOicult. About six years ago he bought twenty 
acres which he has devoted to vines and alfalfa and he has charge 



858 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

of twenty acres, the property of another man. He has been partic- 
ularly successful with the Thompson seedless grapes. 

When he was twenty-three years old Mr. Roes became a member 
of the Masonic order and he has been identified with the Blue Lodge 
at Merced since 1899. In his politics he is Republican. He is a com- 
municant of the German Lutheran church. 



JASPER N. BERGEN 

April 19, 1862, Jaspei- N. Bergen was l)oru in Minnesota. lie is 
now a prosperous fniit growei', two miles and a half southeast of 
Lindsay, Tuhire county, Cal. His parents, natives of Indiana, have 
passed away. His sister was the first of the family to come to Cali- 
fornia. When he was twenty-six years old, in 1888, Mr. Bergen came 
here to visit her, and during a seven months' stay made trips of 
observation to different parts of the state. He went liack to his 
old home and remained there seven years, then came again to Cali- 
fornia and during the succeeding seven years was farming five miles 
north of Woodville. It was not until 1902 that he occupied his pres- 
ent ranch of twenty acres. Small farms are rapidly liecoming a fea- 
ture of Tulare county; many families are not only making a good 
living, but are each year 1 tanking money fi'om returns of twenty-acre 
orchard, vineyard or alfalfa field. Such farmers are always located 
close to town and they have daily mails and telephone service that 
rob rural life of its isolation and make social conditions agreeable. 
The home built up by Mr. Bergen is one of the pleasantest in its 
vicinity. For the vacant land he paid $(55 an acre, and ])lanting 
seven acres of figs, he produced a good crop, packed it himself and 
sold it in the local market at fifteen cents a pound. Four years later 
he planted five acres of orange trees and two years ago he planted 
five acres more. His place is almost entirely devoted to figs ami 
oranges. 

In 1901 Mr. Bergen married Miss Sarah Etta Dunham, a nati\e 
of Indiana and a daughter of parents born in that state. Socially 
he affiliates with the Lindsay organization of the order of Fraternal 
Aid, of which he was a charter member. Wliile he is not an active 
politician, he takes an intelligent interest in all economic questions 
and is heljiful to the ujilift of the comnuinity in a public-spirited way. 
As a fruit grower he is iirogressive and resourceful and he is fast 
coming to the front as one of the leaders in that industry in his 
part of the county. With figs he has lieen remarkably successful, 
and in 1911 he packed about forty-five hundred pounds gathered from 
four hundred and eight trees. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 859 

WILLIAM SWAN 

A son of Frederick ami Sarah (Butler) Swan, William Swan was 
born in Kent, England, November 7, 1849, and was two years and a 
half old when he was bronght to the United States by his mother, his 
father having preceded him in 1850. The family lived in Indiana 
until 1858, then settled in Decatur county, Iowa, where Frederick 
Swan bought one hundred and sixty acres of government land at 
$1.25 an acre, which he improved and on which he lived out his days, 
dying in 1893, aged eighty-four years. Mrs. Swan died in 1900. 

In Iowa William Swan learned farming and worked at it until 
1875, when he came to Tulare count.v. He went up into the mountains 
in the neighborhood of Sequoia lake and worked in the timbers and 
later tended sheep for a while in Kings River at Reedley. Then he 
came to the valley. Those were pioneer days in a new, wild country, 
and he had often to cope with bears foi-aging for food and saw at 
different times as many as a thousand antelope. His tirst holding 
in the valley was two hundred and forty acres of railroad land. Later 
he bought six hundred and forty acres of other land and acquired a 
half interest in oak timber land in the mountains. He sold forty 
acres of land in small tracts, by judicious subdivision. He has now 
ten acres of fruit bearing land. Around his house are a number of 
large trees and he owns the biggest orange tree in Tulare county. 

The woman who became Mr. Swan's wife was Mary Smith, a 
native of Kansas, who had taken uji her residence in California. 
Their children who are living are : Bertha J. ; Wesley AV. ; Gertrude ; 
and Wilma E., at home. Bertha J. married J. W. Smith, a native 
son of California. The Swan family is a family of Democrats and 
Mr. Swan has served his fellow townsmen as school trustee, in which 
office his son-in-law, J. W. Smith, is serving at this time. Mr. Swan 
and Mr. Smith are enterprising and public spirited, ready at all 
times to do their utmost foi- the general good. 



FRANK REMBRANDT KELLENBERG 

Prominent in real estate circles in A'isalia and the San J<)n(|uiii 
valley in general, Mr. Kellenbei'g's enter|)rise and ability Jiave won 
for him an envial)le })lace among his fellows, yet his high i)rincii)les 
and keen sense of justice have actuated throughout his successful 
career none but the fairest dealings. Mr. Kellenberg was born June 
11, 1854, in Alton, Madison county, 111., and was tlie second youngest 
in a family of two sons and live daughters. His father, Francis 
Jerome Kellenberg, a native of (ieorgetown. D. C., was an artist of 



860 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

exceptional ability, his early predileetiun for drawing having been 
followed liy thorough training therein. In his home town he estab- 
lished a studio where he devoted his time to his beloved art, both 
landscapes and ]iortraits receiving his attention, and after his re- 
moval to Alton. III. where he opened a studio, he continued to main- 
tain his first work shop. In I860, after the death of his wife, he 
took his family to Visalia, Cal, where, until his death in 1876. he 
continued to work at his profession, taking up artistic sign painting 
also during his latter years. Among his best works are his copies 
of the Duke of Athens, Venus Arising from the Sea, the Court of 
Death, upon which he worked almost twelve years, a portrait of 
Abraham Lincoln, and an original study. The Dance of the Four 
Seasons. He painted, also, many of the scenic charms of the beau- 
tiful Yosemite valley. His delight in life was to work out through 
the medium of his brush the dreams created by his soul, and his 
nature, kindly and compassionate toward all living creatures, was 
unsullied by selfish greed of gain. 

Frank Rembrandt Kellenberg received his education in the schools 
of Visalia, whereupon he entered the employ of Richard E. Hyde, 
a jiioneer merchant of that city, also for thirty years ]>resident of 
the Bank of Visalia. In his first position Mr. Kellenberg served 
eighteen months, wheu he became a clerk in the establishment of 
Douglas & Comi>any, who later sold to Stevens & Company, with 
whom Mr. Kellenberg remained many years. Eleven years and six 
months from the date of his entrance as an employee of the store, 
he purchased a one-fourth interest in same, but in 1881 he dis- 
jiosed of his share in the establishment and started a retail shoe 
Inisiness, which for seven years he profitably conducted. In 1906 
he sold his store and entered the real estate field which, offering a 
more untrammeled and largely open air life, had long appealed to 
him. 

In 1885 Mr. Kellenberg was united in marriage with Miss Minnie 
Rebecca Kelsey, a daughter of Hiram Kelsey, who is mentioned else- 
where in this volume. 

Some of the most important sales of which Mr. Kellenberg is the 
author, are the following: The Bequette estate, consisting of eight 
hundred acres; the Benjamin Hicks tract north of Visalia, eight 
hundred acres ; a tract of six hundred and forty acres in Kings 
county, and the twenty-four hundred acre Brandon ranch in Fresno 
county. Me owned and sold also large ranch interests as follows: 
Three hundred and twenty acres near Orosi; six hundred and ninety- 
one acres near Orosi, in the Stokes mountains ; one hundred and sixty 
acres near Cross creek; eighty acres near Farmersville; one hun- 
dred and sixty acres on the Tule river; fifty aci-es three miles from 
Visalia, and numerous smaller places. He is at present interested 



TULARE Ax\D KINGS COUNTIES 861 

iu a section of land in tlio Lost Hills, Kern connty. wIumi' oil has 
been fonnd and where drilliniis are now taking i)laee. 

Mr. and Mrs. Kellenherti have been lilessed with a son and a 
daughter, Frank Unido and Louise. In retrospection, Mr. KelJen- 
berg frequently mentions liis early days in the west, beginning with 
the never-to-be-forgotten stage coach trip across the plains, from 
(iilroy to Visalia, tl:en inhabited only by wild horses and antelope, 
which took flight at the sound or sight of man. He has been one 
of Visalia 's most dependable citizens, always prompt to lend his aid 
whenever possible toward the develo]nnent of the eonnnunity. 



IJIRAM KELSEY 

One of Visalia 's substantial citizens was Hiram Kelsey, who 
passed away August 8, 1907. He was born in Logan county, Ohio, 
December 10, 1829, his ancestors having been pioneers of Kentucky 
and also among the first settlers of Ohio. In 1799 his grandfather, 
John Kelsey, moved from tlie former state to Warren connty, forty 
miles north of Cincinnati, when his son Abner, father of Hiram, 
was l)ut six months old. In this section Abner Kelsey spent his 
youth, and ere he reached his majority wedded Miss Nancy Purely, 
a native of Genesee county, N. Y., whose mother, Miss Brown 
before her marriage, was a native of Scotland. Eleven children 
were born to Mr. and Mrs. Kelsey, nine of whom grew to nuxturity; 
but two, however, are now living. Both husband and wife lived to 
a good old age, ninety-one and eighty, respectively. 

In 1852 Hiram Kelsey crossed the jilains to California and i)ros- 
pected for a time in Placer county, later moving to the San Jose 
valley, where he conducted a farm. In 1854 he returned to Placer 
county and engaged iu the butcher Imsiness, securing his beef from 
the well-known Todd brothers, cattle dealers of Nai»a valley. In 
addition to his profitable trade, Mr. Kelsey's income from his mine 
ventures was not inconsiderable. After three years in this loca- 
tion he returned east, where he married Miss Jemima Hill, and with 
his bride located on an Iowa farm, where they resided seven years, 
and where three of theii- children were born: Isadora May (now 
Mrs. George A. Butz), Harlan W. and Mimiie R. (wife of Frank R. 
Kellenberg of Visalia). As a jiroof of his popularity and executive 
ability, Mr. Kelsey was elected three times to serve as supervisor 
while i-esiding in Marion county, Iowa. Later he disposed of his 
farm and took his family to Michigan, where they resided two years, 
moving, in 188(), to Missouri. Their youngest son, John \\'., was 
horn in California, and in 187.'! the family came to N'isalia, where 



8(52 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

Mr. Kelsey engaged iu business and where his conscientious prin- 
ciples and wide sympathies, soon recognized by his fellow citizens, 
were able to find adequate expression during his service of two years 
as health officer. Later he established a butcher shop iu Tulare, and 
in 1887 retired from active life, spending his last days in Visalia. 
For many years Mr. Kelsey was the oldest member of the Knights 
of Pythias, and upon liis death was mourned by a large number of 
friends who appreciated his genial, kindly uature and his keen sense 
of justice. 



HENRY C. SMITH 

The hardy Norwegian, wherever the fortunes of life may cast 
him, be he safely landed or shipwi-ecked, is quite likely to make the 
best of the situation in which he is placed and more certain tlian 
men of some other nationalities which might be mentioned to win 
all the success that is enwrai)ped in the possibilities of the unknown 
future. Kings county has had some i)ioneers and numerous citizens 
of this nationality. One of the best known of them is Henry C. 
Smith of Guernsey, son of John H. Smith, who was born iu Norway 
in November, 1813, eventually coming to Tulare county, and died there 
May, 1907. 

Henry C. Smith was Ijorn at Sonora, Tuolumne county, Cal., Feb- 
ruary 12, 1866, and lived with his father wherever the latter 's agri- 
cultural enterprises caused him to establish a home until the old 
Norwegian farmer jiassed away. As a boy he attended Lakeside dis- 
trict school until he was seventeen years old. Afterwards, in accord- 
ance with tlie custom which lias obtained quite generally with farmers' 
sons, he gave his services to his father until he was twenty-one years 
old. After that, as has been stated, the two were associated in 
bu.siness during the remainder of the life of the elder Smith. Since 
his father jiassed away the son has given liis attention to general 
farming and stock-raising, making a specialty of the lu'eeding of hogs. 
He owns eight hundred acres of good land and a one-half interest 
in an additional two hundred and eighty acres. As a farmer he has 
been very successful and takes rank with the best agriculturists in 
his part of the county. 

In 1909 Mr. Smith built the Kings County Cheese factory, of 
which he is the sole owner, and its location is on the southeast corner 
of the northwest quarter of section twenty-five, township twenty, 
range twentv-one. On his land are a hundred and sevenfv-five cows 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 863 

wliose milk is utilized in the factory. His clieese-maker is an expert 
in liis line and they niannfacture three brands of cheese, viz. : Young 
Anierioan. Flat and Monterey, all being full-eream and commanding 
the highest mai'ket prices because of their delicious taste and ex- 
cellent <|uality. Constantly looking for iuiijrovements, Mr. Smith, in 
1911 and litTJ, put down two artesian wells so that his lands are now 
among the best irrigated tracts in the county. The wells have a 
depth of twenty-three hundred and eighty and two thousand feet 
respectively, and flow copiously, and in connection with the Lake- 
side ditch furnish an abundance of water for iri'igation purposes. 

In 1891) Henry C. Smith married Miss Marie Heinrich, a native 
of Kansas, who has borne him six children: Albert, Ethel, Clara, 
^"ernon, Marie and Queenie. Mr. Smith takes a deep and abiding- 
interest in everything that pertains to the advancement of his county 
and state and is ready at all times with liberal encouragement of 
measures directed to the benefit of the iieo])le at large. 



VAIL BROTHERS 

Painting and paper hanging is now a well recognized trade, and 
those who succeed in it are men who like the Vail Brothers of Han- 
ford, Kings county, Cal., have given years to its acquisition and 
[tractice. J. W. and E. M. Vail were born at Antioch, Contra (Josta 
county, Cal., sons of F. M. Vail, a painter, who had himself served 
an api>renticeship to a trade which he had jierfected by long years of 
experience. AVhen the sous were mere boys their parents took them to 
Lemoore, Kings county, where their father taught them their trade 
and they began their career as contractors of painting and paper 
hanging. It was in 1911 that they built their present store and shops 
on North Douty street, Hanford, materially extending their Imsiness 
after having devoted ten years of work and study to it. Besides 
handling materials for their own contracts, they sell house lining, wall 
])apcr, paint, oils and glass and merchandise of all kinds which can 
be utilized in interior or outside decoration of buildings. 

There are not in Hanford, in the younger business circles, t^wo 
more jiopular or well esteemed men than J. W. and E. M. Vail. They 
take a public spirited interest in all the affairs of the town and 
aflfiliate with several of its fraternal organizations, notably with the 
Native Sons of the (! olden West, the Improved Order of Red Men 
and the Woodmen of the World. They are members of the Painters' 
union, of which J. W. has served as trustee and P]. M. is the recording 
secretary. 

In .July, 1897, J. W. Vail married Miss Mary Bollninn, a native 
of Atlanta, (}a., then living in Kings county, and they have daughters 
named Mary and Agnes. E. M. Vail married Miss Minnie Cox in 



864 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

1901. mill they have had two sons and a daughter. The second son 
died when two years of age. Tlic two living are named respectively 
Frank and JNIinnie May. 

To F. M. ^'ail, the father of J. W. and E. M. Vail, belongs the 
distinction of l)eing the first man married in Kings county. His sec- 
ond imion at an age of forty-three with his present wife, then Mrs. 
Hattie Stanton, a native of California, on the second day of June, 
1893, is the first marriage recorded in said county. 



ROBERT K. OGDEN 

A native of the Prairie State, now one of the successful men of 
Tulare county, the career of Robert K. Ogden has been one of strug- 
gles and success. He was born at Victoria, Knox county. 111.. A]iril 
2, 1864, a son of Mathew B. and Catherine (Fisher) Ogden, the one 
a native of Pennsylvania, the other of Illinois. The father came to 
California and, locating in Riverside, was one of the pioneer orange 
growers in the southern part of the state. He met with much success 
and became widely known in fruit circles as well as in the leading 
markets of California and the East. He so far won the confidence 
of his fellow citizens that they called bim to the office of justice of 
the peace and elected him a memljer of the 1)oard of supervisors of 
Riverside county. 

In young manhood Robert K. Ogden engaged in freighting be- 
tween Leavenworth, Kans., and Santa Fe, N. Mex. Buffalo and other 
wild game were jilentiful in that ]:iart of the country at that time, and 
he saw buffalo chased by hunters through the streets of Dodge City. 
Kans. After be bad freighted for a time be went to Indian Territory. 
He once drove a band of horses to New Orleans and later was engaged 
in the livery business for a year in Arkansas. We next find bim in 
Montgomery county, in his native state, working for wages. From 
Illinois he went to Kansas City, Mo., where he was employed to assist 
in the construction of a railroad from that city to Beatrice, Gage 
county. Neb. California has been his home since 1889 and be began 
his career here as a rancher on Lewis creek, between Exeter and 
Lindsay. In the period 1891-95 he was farming west of Visalia, grow- 
ing wheat extensively and breeding bogs in large numbers. In 1896 
he bought his present farm of sixty acres on the Exeter road, four 
miles from Visalia, and has greatly improved the property, planting- 
much of it to alfalfa and maintaining a fine dairy. He is considered 
one of the up-to-date farmers of Tulare county and bis success is of 
so substantial a character that it seems to hold out a promise of note- 
wortbv future achievement. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 865 

In December, 1891, Mr. Ogden married Miss Pearl Mathewson, 
wlio was l)oru iu 'J'ulare coimty, a daughter of oue of its pioneers. 
Tliey own a line home in Visalia. Mrs. Ogden has been a worthy 
heli)meet to her worthy husband and has given him her sym[)athy and 
encouragement in all the years since their marriage. They have 
children named Arthur M., Harry R., Beulali, Beryl, Ralph and 
Wanda. Mr. Ogden alhliates with the Eagles, the Modern Woodmen 
and the Woodmen of the World. 



ENOCH A. SMITH 

On his father's side the subject of this sketch is descended from 
old Virginia families and on his mother's from families long known 
near Frankfort, Scott county, Kentucky. His parents were Jeptha 
and Nancy Rachel (Waller) Smith and he was born in Kentucky, 
January 26, 1840. When he was live years old his parents took him 
to Northeast Missouri, where his father farmed and where his mother 
died in 1848. In 1850 his father came overland, with ox-teams, with 
the Hill outfit, to California and located in Yolo county. From there 
he later went to Nevada county, where he mined for a short time and 
later was otherwise employed until 1866, when he passed away. Enoch 
remained in Northeast Missouri until 1857. In the spring of that year 
the Vines and McManus party was organized for immigration to Cali- 
fornia by the overland route. Ox-teams were to be used; there were 
forty wagons manned by twenty men. The train left St. Joseph, May 
5, 1857, and arrived at Santa Rosa September 1, following. Six hun- 
dred head of cattle, the property of a Mr. Moore, were driven. At 
Gravelly Ford, Indians stole twenty-one cattle, seven of which they 
killed, but the immigrants rescued the fourteen others. The twenty 
men kept up a long running fight with twenty-five Indians, killing nine- 
teen of them. Closely pursued, the surviving redskins sought safety 
by jumping into the Humboldt river, but the white men waited on the 
bank and shot at a head wliene\er it appeared above the water. After 
that there was no molestation of this party by Indians. Between 
Lassen Meadows and Honey Lake valley the immigrants came upon a 
deep spring which they sounded to a depth of one hundred and thirty- 
two feet without finding bottom. 

After living for a time near Windsor, Mr. Smith came to Tulare 
county and located at Visalia in 1859. He was acquainted with all 
the old settlers, the Evanses, the IMcCrurys, the ]\Iorrisseys and the 
Shannons and others, and was a witness to the hanging of James 
McCrury and knew the latter's friend, Mr. Allen. For a time he had 
charge of a band of sheep iu Fi-aziei' valley which numbered two 



866 TULARE AXD KINGS COUNTIES 

thousaud liead. After Lis marriage lie bouglit governmeut laud iu 
Sand Creek district, holding three hundred and twenty acres. He pre- 
em|)ted one hundred and sixty acres in 1869 and has taken over land 
since until he and his son, George E. Smith, own one thousand acres, 
farming two hundred and fifty acres and devoting the remainder to 
pasturage. They keep an average of one hundred and fifty head of 
stock and seventy-five hogs. 

When Mr. Smith came to this part of the state, cattle and sheep 
were being fed everywhere, houses were scattered very sparsely over 
the country and travelers found at Smith Ferry the only dwelling they 
]iasse.l in eighteen miles from that point to within four miles of Vi- 
salia. There were many bands of deer and antelope and he shot deer 
from time to time for food. Brown bear were numerous. He is the 
owner of many relics of by-gone days. Mr. Smith is a public-spirited 
citizen of Republican principles and has done his full share toward 
the development of the county. He married in 1872, in Northeast Mis- 
souri, Miss Ellen Ilarley, a native of Maryland, and their only son 
and child, George E., a native of California, is a member of their 
household. 



LEWIS S. SMITH 

In no lines of business is true ])rogressiveness more eagerly 
sought or more (juickly recognized than in those which touch upon 
our household economies. Esi)ecially is this true of the dairy busi- 
ness, whicli is ably represented at Hanford by Lewis Smith, proprietor 
of the up-to-date concern at No. 116 S. Irwin street, which is operated 
under the name of Smith Brothers. Mr. Smith was born in Lawrence 
county, Ohio, April 3, 1879, and was there reared and educated. He 
early inclined to a business occupation and was employed as a sales- 
man in a general stoi-e until 1901-. Then he came to California and. 
locating at Hanford, worked in that vicinity until 1907. Then, with 
his brother George R. as a partner, he engaged in the retail irillc 
business and Imilt and equipjied the fine ]^]aut at the location above 
mentioned. It is a building eighteen by forty feet in area measure- 
ments, having a concrete fioor and other equipment, thoroughly 
sanitary and of tlie latest models. In 1909 he bought his brother's 
interest in the business, but has since conducted it without change of 
name. His milk is purchased from R. R. Butler and Ray Campliell, 
both of whom keep ins]iected dairies. In 1912 he added a complete 
outfit for the manufacture of ice cream for the wholesale and retail 
trade. 

Decemlier 20. 1910, Mr. Smith married Miss Bessie Johnson, a 



TULARE AND KINGS (M)UNTIES 867 

native of Missouri, born April 2, 1891, who hail l)ecouie <i resident 
of Hanford. They have one son, Lewis Sidney, born November 14, 
1912. Sooially he afliliates with the Odd Fellows lodi>e, encamptuont 
and canton at Hanford and with the organizations of Knights of 
Pythias. As a member of the Chamber of Commerce and in his 
other relations with his fellow citizens he has always shown a decree 
of public spirit that has commended him their good opinion. 



WILLIAM M. CLARK 

The birth of William M. Clark occurred in Scotland county. Mo., 
November 5, 1866. He was a son of James M. and Martha E. (Baker) 
Clark, the former a native of Kentucky, his mother a native of Mis- 
souri. James M. Clark served in the Civil war under General Morgan 
in the Confederate army and was one of ninety-nine of Morgan's men 
who tunneled out of the Federal prison for Confederate captives at 
Chicago. One of the guards hailed him after he had left the tunnel, 
and failing to get a response fired at him, but missed him. He had 
other narrow escapes which would be interesting could they be nar- 
rated here. He was in the service from 1862 until the end of the war, 
all the time in Lee's command and a part of that time under the great 
general's authority, took part in many battles and skirmishes, and 
from time to time did hazardous scouting. One of his recollections 
was of an involuntary horse trade on a bridge, another was of the 
instantaneous disajipearance of the nose of the man near him whose 
face had unfortunately come into the range of Federal firearms. 
After the war he lived in Missouri until 1892, when he died, aged 
forty-five. It was beside his father's deathbed that William M. Clark 
married Miss Mary Johnson, and they have had three children, 
Arthur, Mar^-in and Laurin. Mrs. Clark was born in the same county 
in Missouri as was Mr. Clark. Their oldest child is now a student in 
the grammar school. 

Mr. Clark lived with his father in Missouri until he was twenty- 
three years old. He learned farming, and contracting and l)ui!ding, 
and was employed at different limes at these occupations. When he 
came to California and settled in Tulare county, in 1889, he found him- 
self in the midst of a vast wheat country, the land ranging in 
market value from $5 to $15 an acre. Later he bought thirty acres at 
$25 an acre, which is now worth $200 an acre. He has fourteen acres 
of grapes and ten acres of peaches and will soon plant five acres to 
orange trees. His first crop of grapes yielded him three-quarters of 
a ton to the acre and his peaches in 1911 sold for $400. He is not 



868 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

giviug muc'li attention to stock and keeps only such as is required on 
Ms ranch. 

Fraternally Mr. Clark affiliates with the Modern Woodmen, Mrs. 
Clark with the Royal Neighbors. They are members of the Methodist 
Episcopal church. In his ])olitical conviction he is a Democrat. As a 
citizen he is public-spirited and helpful. 



JABEL M. DEAN 

As citizen and official, Jabel M. Dean, of Hanford, Kings county, 
Cal., has impressed his personality upon the ])rogress of that city. 
Born in Tennessee, June 29, 18(30, he settled in Hanford in 1880 and 
learned the carpenter's trade with W. H. Nyswonger. He worked as 
a carjienter until 1896, when he engaged in contracting and building 
with W. W. Cole as a partner. Among the residences built in Hanford 
by this firm may be mentioned those of T. J. Mcjunkin, A. G. Parks, 
L. C. Dunham, Charles McGee, J. Bowman, "William Trewhitt. Thomas 
Ebod, A. M. Fredericks, Frank Arnold, E. W. Pilkingtou, Mrs. Mary 
Bruner, and three for H. E. Wright. In Lemoore they erected the 
residences of Ed. Sellors and R. Deacon; they built an addition to tlie 
Methodist church at Hanford; and among the country homes of their 
fashioning are those of J. J. Gartner and John W. Jones, and those of 
Mrs. Hitchock and Mr. Haekett of Grangeville. They draw their own 
plans for buildings and give the most conscientious attention to every 
detail of construction. 

In 1906 Mr. Dean was elected city trustee of Hanford, and during 
his four years' service a number of important civic matters were un- 
dertaken, including the beginning of cement sidewalk construction in 
residence streets, the extension of the sewer system, the bu^-ing of 
chemical fire engines and of hose carts, and the extension of the 
electric tire alarm system. In this period a proposition was made to 
submit to the people the question of the abolition of saloons in the city, 
and Mr. Dean was the only member of the ))oard who voted for it. He 
introduced an ordinance demanding that the jjeople vote on the ques- 
tion of a municipal water system. In other ways he has proven his 
public s^iirit. He is a member of the Carpenter's Union. 



WILLIAM BRYAN CHARLES, M. D. 

In Salem, Washington county, Ind., William B. Charles. M. D., 
of Hanford, was born March 12, 1857, a son of Levin and America 
(Rodman) Charles. Nathan Chai'les, his grandfather, a Quaker, was 



TULARE AND KINGS (M)UNTIKS 869 

liuin in ^larylaud aiul was takeu by his [tarents to North ("aroiina, 
where lie married. In 1818 he settled within the present limits of 
Washin.iiton county, fnd., as a farmer and saddler, and died there in 
1868, aged ninety-one years. His son, Levin Charles, born in North 
Carolina, was four years old when his parents took him to Indiana, 
where he passed the remainder of his years, dying at the age of sixty- 
five after a useful career as a farmer. He was prominent in local 
affairs as a Wiiig and later as a Republican. He married America 
Rodman, who was born in Shelby county, Ky., daughter of Hugh Rod- 
man, a native Kentuckian, who settled in Washington county. Inch, 
about 1825. He had served in the war of 1812 and later became a 
successful farmer and he lived to be seventy-live years old. Hugh 
Rodman, Sr., his fatiier, born in P)ucks courity. Pa., settled iu Ken- 
tucky in 1786, going thence by jjoat down the Ohio river. He traced 
his ancestry to Scotland. America (Rodman) Charles died in Indiana 
in 1875, fifty-two years old, having home eleven children, of whom 
Doctor Charles was the sixth. 

After attending the schools at Salem, Ind., until he was nineteen 
years old. Doctor Charles came in 1876 to what is now Kings county, 
Cal., and foi' two years was employed at farm work and teaming. 
Then, returning to Indiana, he entered an academy at Salem to lire- 
pare himself for the university and was graduated in 1882. A ])art 
of the time while he was a student at the academy he taught school 
in the vicinity and gave some attention to an ac(iuisition of a knowl- 
edge of the drug business under the instruction of his brother, who 
was a physician as well as a druggist. He entered the medical dejiart- 
ment of the LTniversity of Kentucky at Louisville and was duly gradu- 
ated from that institution March 1, 1887. It was at Norcatnr, Kans., 
that he entered upon the practice of his profession. There he remained 
until 1894, and in March of that year he located at Hanford, building up 
a lucrative i)ractice and commending himself to his fellow citizens of all 
classes by his thorough knowledge of his profession and a winning per- 
sonality. At Norcatnr, Kans., Doctor Charles was married November 
30, 1887. to Miss Carrie S. Wildfang, a native of Wisconsin, and two of 
the children born to them are living, Ethel and William Gordon. Though 
he was always very Imsy professionally. Doctor C^harles, as a loyal, 
iniblic-spi riled citizen, found time to devote himself to the uplift of 
the comnnmity. He was a stanch Republican and influential in ))oliti- 
cal affairs. He served as delegate to several county and state con- 
ventions and was a member of the Republican State Centi'al Com- 
mittee. He was appointed to the office of county physician in 18!)i) 
and served until 1906. when he resigned and, on account of his wife's 
ill health, I'eturned to Kansas and practiced at Olierlin foi- one year. 
November 30, 1907, he returned to Hanford and in 1!<09 was reap- 
pointed county i)hysician. In 1912 he was ni)])ointed i-ity health olificer. 



870 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

and iciiiaiiit'd in active practice and official life until liis death, October 
13, 1912. His interest in his profession was deep and sincere and he 
kei)t in touch with the progress which medical science is constantly 
making". Fraternally he affiliated with Hanford Lodge No. 279, F. & 
A. M., and the Woodmen of the World, Fraternal Order of Eagles and 
the Knights of Pvthias. 



WILLIAM P. RATLIFF 

W. P. Ratliff has been postmaster at Tulare since May 1, 1902, 
having received his original ap])ointmeut under President Roosevelt 
in the preceding April. He has been a local leader in the Republican 
party, has served on state and county central committees, has been 
city assessor and city treasurer of Tulare and president and secretary 
of the Board of Trade. Fraternally he affiliates with Olive Branch 
Lodge No. 269. F. & A. M., in which he was made a Mason and in 
which he is past master; with Tulare Chapter No. 71, R. A. M., in 
which he is jiast high priest; with the Ancient Order of United Work- 
men, and with the Woodmen of the AVorid. With the members of 
these orders he is no more jiopular than in the business and social 
circles of the city and county. 

In Oskaloosa, Iowa, Mr.. Ratlilf was born ()ctol)er 12, 1859, a 
son of John and Elizabeth (Madden) Ratliff. John Ratliff was a son 
of William Ratliff. whose father, a native of the Isle of Man, settled 
in Pennsylvania. William moved from Pennsylvania to Indiana and 
later inished on to Iowa. When his i)arents left Pennsylvania John 
was lint a small lioy. In his early manhood he settled on a farm in 
Iowa, but the stories of gold in California which came to him in the 
late '40s awoke within him a spirit of adventure. He crossed the plains 
in 1850 and jirosjiected and mined for eight years, then went back to 
Iowa by way of the Isthmus of Panama and New York. He made a 
brief sto)) in New York City and there married Elizabeth Madden, 
a native of Dublin, Ireland, whose brother Michael had shared the ups 
and downs of mining with him in California. At the beginning of 
1860, when their son William P. was about three months old, John 
Ratliff, who had stoii])ed in Iowa to settle u]i some business prepara- 
tory to his intended return to California, was killed by being thrown 
from a horse. His widow brought their child to California before the 
close of that year and found a home in Plumas county, where she later 
married E. PI. Holthouse, to whom she bore four sons and a daughter, 
who live in Santa Clara county. The family moved to a farm near 
Lawrence Station, not far from San Jose, in 1870. Theie Mrs. Holt- 
house died as the result of an accidental fall in 1902, when she was in 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 871 

her sixty-uintli year. IJer sou, William P. Ratliff, supplemented a 
common school education by a three years' course in Santa Clara Col- 
lege, then became a clerk in the employ of T. AV. Sprin.s>-. Tu 18S-J 
he came to Tulare and became a brakemau in the employ of the South- 
ern Pacific Railroad company. In a year he was made conductor of 
a train running between Tulare and Huron. In ISSS he identified 
himself with the business of P>raly & Blythe, real estate agents and 
representatives of the Wells-Fargo Express Comjiany. lie withdrew 
from tliat connection in ISili' to become cashier of the Tulare County 
Pauk and the Tulare Savings Bank. In August, IHiXi, he resigned to 
accejtt the assistant casliiersiiii) of the Bank of Tulare, which he held 
until February, 1901, when he removed to Kern county as superiutend- 
ent of two -oil companies ojjerating in the Kern River oil field. There 
he fell a victim to typhoid fever, which held him to his bed for five 
months. Meanwhile he was taken to San Francisco, where better at- 
tention and care were possible than he was receiving in Kern county. 
He came back to Tulare in November, 1901, and a few months later 
accepted the cashiershi]i of the Bank of Tulare, which he held until 
his appointment as jiostmaster. 

June 5, 1888, Mr. Ratliff married Alice Harter, a native of Stock- 
ton and a daughter of Isaac and Matilda (Parker) Harter, ]uoneers 
in California. Their wedding was celebrated in Tulare and there their 
son Clinton P. was born. 



H. P. BROWN 

This leading lawyer and man of affairs of Kings county, Cal., 
whose olfices ai-e in the P"'armers and Mechanics Bank building at 
Hanford, is a native son of Tulare county and was born two miles 
west of Grangeville July 17, 1873. Primarily educated in the pioneer 
district schools near there, he later attended ITauford high school, 
from which he giaduated in 18i)(). In 1899 he graduated fi-om the 
Hastings Law College and in May of that year was adniitted to iirac- 
tice in the Supreme Court of California. Immediately thereaftei- he 
opened an office in lianlord, and here he has made his business and ])ro- 
fessional headquarters ever since. As a lawyer he has given his atten- 
tion lai-gejy to s))ecial interests, but notwithstanding that fact he has 
achieved a notable success in general practice. He is deeply intci-ested 
in agriculture, horticultuic and stockraising, and in irriiinfion as a 
factoi- essential to success in those fields of endeavor undei- the jie- 
culiarities of local environment, lie is the owner of six hundred and 
forty acres of land, half of which is devoted to farming, forty acres 
to fruit growing and the icmaindcr to alfalfa, L;iaiii and stock grazing. 



872 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIF.S 

He owus a one-tliiixl interest in the reolaniation conipauy whose ac^tivi- 
ties center on Empire ranch and is one of its directors. It irrigates 
a district extending twelve miles southwest from the river, a large 
part of the land having been reclaimed from the lake. He is a stock- 
holder and director also in the New Deal Ditch Company of Hanford 
(whose ditch extends from a jioint southeast of John Sigier's ranch), 
a director in the Lone Oak Canal Company (whose ditch runs south of 
the old Lost Chance ditch), is attorney for the Wilber reclamation 
district (which includes thirty thousand acres of land under reclauui- 
tion on the southeast border of Tulare lake), and attorney for the 
Fresno & Hanford Railroad Company. He was one of the organizers 
of and is a director in the New Kings County Chamber of Commerce 
and helped to organize the Kings County Dairyman's Association, of 
which he is a director, and organized the Lam])enhein Creamery of 
Hardwick, in the comjiany controlling which he is a director. There is 
no movement for the ])ublic good in which he is not interested directly 
or indirectly. Fraternally he affiliates with the Masonic lodge at Han- 
ford. with Scottish Rite Masons and with the Shrine of Islam at San 
Francisco and with the Eastern Star, besides which he is identified 
with the Knights of Pythias, the Woodmen of the World, the Im- 
proved Order of Red Men and the Native Sons of the Golden West. 
In 1902 he married Metta Robinson, a daughter of the late W. W. 
Robinson. 



M. J. PONTANA 

In all of our industries, from the railroad builder to the bank 
president, the foreign-born citizen has always displayed excellent 
qualities, this being especially true of some of the sons of Italy who 
have located here. Among these none has made a more striking 
record in California than M. J. Fontana, general su])erintendent of the 
California Fruit Canners' Association. He came to America when 
he was quite a young man, determined to make a home and fortune 
for himself in the New World. Having worked in the fruit business 
in New York, this interest was continued in California, whither he 
came in 1868, arriving in San Francisco with very limited means. 
Today, measure him as you will, he is one of the big men of the state, 
for he has made a success in every sense of the word. For a time he 
worked at anything that his hands found to do, 1)ut later he managed 
to form an alliance with fruit men which was the beginning of his 
upward progress. In 1870 he started in the fruit and produce busi- 
ness in San Francisco, and afterward engaged in the canning business 
in the same city, also starting branches at ?Iealdsburg and Hanford. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 873 

Finally in 1898 lie sold imt to the California Fruit Cauners' Associa- 
tion, an organization in whicli lie still holds an interest, being a direc- 
tor and a member of the executive board. His Hanford plant was the 
pioneer fruit canning and ]iacking establishment in Kings county and 
was built in 1895. Tliis i)lant has packed a yearly average of three 
hundred thousand cases of peaches and dried fruits for the past fifteen 
years, and also handles dried prunes, raisins and ai^ricots. 

Mr. Fontana has been a large developer in the fields of horticul- 
ture and viticulture in California for many years. He has large wine 
interests in the state, being president of the Italian-Swiss Wine Col- 
ony Association and dii'ector of the California Wine Association and 
is general superintendent of the California Canners Association, a 
flirector in the Italian-American Bank of San Francisco and is a direc- 
tor of the E. B. i^- A. L. Stone Co., a large contracting concern which 
did the construction work on the Western Pacific Railroad from San 
Francisco to Oroville, Cal. For two years he held the office of trus- 
tee of the city of San Francisco. 

In 1877 Mr. Fontana was married to Nellie Jones of San Leandro, 
Cal., and they have three sons and one daughter, all of whom are 
married and connected with the California Fruit Canners' Associa- 
tion. 



IVER KNUTSON 

A native of Norway, Iver Knutson received a good education in 
that far northern country and served an apprenticeship at the car- 
penter's trade. When about seventeen years old he came to the 
United States and made his way overland to California, where he 
was a miner in the early '50s. Eventually he went to Santa Rosa, 
Sonoma county, and from there to Gilroy, Santa Clara county, and in 
the latter place ])lied his 1i-ade of cai'])enter, and several buildings which 
he built or helped to l)uil(l arc still standing. Hearing of the rich lauds 
in the Mussel Slough section of Tulare county, he moved there in 1872 
and took iip a claim, which he began to imjirove. In the history of 
this ]>art of the state it is recorded how he was killed in the famous 
Mussel Slough fight of 1880. He married, at Santa Rosa, Miss Cyn- 
thia Clawson, a native of Wisconsin, who was brought across the 
|ilains when a small child by her father, coming overland to Cali- 
fornia soon after 1850. She bore her husband seven children and 
survived him until 1894, when she i)assed away. Their children 
were: Charles, deceased; William (J.; Joseph F., deceased; James E. ; 
Mrs. William C. Clarkson, of Lemon Cove, Cal.; Henry E., who 
lives in Exeter; and Albert E., deceased. 



874 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

On October 8, 1868, William 0. Knutson was horn at Old Gilroy, 
Cal. He divided bis time between tbe public scbool and work on his 
father's ranch, and his first venture on his own account was as a 
farmer in Kaweah swami^. For the past nine years he has been 
in the dairy business on the Exeter road near Farmersville, in the 
region known as the A^isalia district, and at this time he is renting 
sixty acres, on which he maintains a dair.y of twenty cows. 

In 1896 Mr. Knutson married Miss Nellie E. Gray, a native of 
Iowa, and they have two children, Esthei- N. and Thelma L. In a 
fraternal way he affiliates with the Modern AVoodmen, the Royal 
Neighbors and the Fraternal Brotherhood. Without being an active 
politician, he takes an intelligent interest in all questions of pulilic 
significance and is prompt and generous in response to all demands 
toward the advance of the communitv. 



N. B. BOWKER 

Prominent in tlie mercantile circles and well known throughout 
Central California, N. B. Bowker, of Corcoran, is recognized as one 
of the leading citizens of Kings county, Cal., where he has lived since 
1908. He was born in Defiance, Ohio, in 188-4, and just missed being 
a Christmas present by making his advent in the home of his parents 
on December 26. As soon as he was old enough he was sent to the 
public school, and after he comi^leted the course of study laid down 
for its students he took a thorough commercial course in an efficient 
business college. He was employed in his native state as a clerk 
until 1901, when he came to California. After emiiloyment about 
six years as an electrician, he located in Corcoran and not long after- 
ward engaged in business for himself as proprietor of a men's fur- 
nishings goods store, and has won one of the consi)icuous commer- 
cial successes which has brought Corcoran to the attention of an 
extensive tributary territory. 

October 15, 1907, Mr. Bowker married Miss E. E. Doughtery, 
who was born in Iowa March 6, 1886, and they have two daughters, 
Mildred and Margaret. Mr. and Mrs. Bowker have won the friend- 
ship of a large circle of acquaintances and their geniality and sin- 
cere interest in all with whom they come in contact make them wel- 
come everywhere. Mr. Bowker has achieved ]iopularity in business 
circles by doing business on strict business principles, while always 
showing a disposition to give the other man a chance. C'ustomers 
once attracted to his store continue their patronage and bring their 
friends to take ad\autage of the bargains that he offers from time 
to time. With so satisfaeory a ]iast, so prosperous a itresent. his 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 875 

future is full of promise, and the time is uot far distant when he will 
take his place among the foremost merchants in his part of the state. 



JESSE B. AdNEAV 

An identification with Tulare county's industrial affairs since 
1883 has made Jesse B. Ag-new well known throughout that vicinity, 
and although his ]iresent business takes him from the neighborhood 
on many occasions he holds his residence in Visalia at the old Young 
homestead. No. 600 South East street, where the family of his esti- 
mable wife had lived for many years. Mr. Agnew is a successful 
seed grower, wdth offices at No. 110 Market street, San Francisco, 
and he is also manager of the Pacific Seed Growers' Company. His 
father came to the west in 1846, locating in Oregon, and then returned 
east for a short time. He made in all seven trips to California be- 
fore there was a railroad, and his experiences and knowledge on the 
traveling situation in those days is a most interesting narrative. 
A blacksmith by trade, he conducted a shop at the early mining 
camps and later removed to Santa Clara county, Cal., about lS7o, 
and it was at this time that he jmrchased the old Agnew homestead. 

Jesse B. Agnew was born at Eddyville, Iowa, Sejiteniber 15, 
I860, and when nine years old was brought to Santa Clara county, 
where he was reared until 1883, at which time he moved to Tulare 
county. He was in the railroad land office of the Southern Pacific 
Railroad for a time. He married Miss Ida Young, daughter of 
Newton and Mary (Price) Young, who were among the earliest 
pioneers of Visalia. The Price family were natives of Wales, who 
came to America with the well-known Evans family. 



TILLMAN B. PHARISS 

Among the well-known and ]irogressive cattlemen of his vicinity 
is numbered consi)icuously Tillman B. Phariss, whose well-equipjied 
ranch and fine range of cattle evidence his unusual ability in his 
chosen calling. His father was F. W. Phariss, who ma<lc the over- 
land journey across the iilains and mountains to California with ox- 
team in 1852, and he experienced much of the hardship and danger 
of those early times. He later returned to the east, but in 1871 he 
again came to California, bringing his family with him. 

Born in Dallas county. Mo., in 1871, Tillman B. Phariss was 
but five months old when his father came the second time to Call- 



876 TULARE AXD KTXGS COrXTTES 

I'oniia. and he is therefore ])ractically a native son. Settling in 
Sonoma eonnty, the family remained in that vicinity for about six 
years and then leiiioved to the Tide river eonnti-y, in Tulare county, 
and here Mr. Phariss made his home and grew to manhood. Follow- 
ing in the footsteps of his father, who became an extensive cattle 
ranger in the county, Mr. Phariss familiarized himself with all the 
details of stockraising and the handling of cattle, and he now has a 
ranch of twenty acres on which he raises a high grade of stock for 
the market. 

In 1899 Mr. Phariss was married to Evea Grider, who is a 
native daughter of California. Four children have been born of 
this union: Elvin C, Walter S.. and two who are deceased. Mr. 
and Mrs. Phariss are popular citizens in their eonmumity and hold 
the respect and esteem of all who know them. 



FRAXK P. HAYES 

This capitalist and man of affairs of Tulare, Tulare county, was 
born in Wayne county. Pa., in April, 1863, and was brought to Cali- 
fornia when he was five years old by his parents, who located at 
Oakland. Here he lived until 1885. in that year coming to Tulare 
county and renting twelve hundred and eighty acres of land, four 
miles west of Visalia. After raising grain there for three years he 
leased the Lindsay Laud Company's land near Lindsay, a tract of six 
thousand acres, on which he began as a grower of grain and later 
embarked in the raising of cattle, combining the two interests until 
in the fall of 1910, when he bought nine hundred acres adjoining the 
Lindsay land and went into the cattle business exclusively. About 
this time he also bought thirty-two hundred acres on the lake, near 
Angiola, and fifteen acres on the Lindsay road. He sold out the last 
of his holdings in X'ovember, 1911. The records of the Dair^nnen's 
Co-operative Creamery Company show that he helped to organize 
that corporation and served a year as its president. He is a director 
of the First X'ational Bank of Tulare and has from time to time been 
connected with other important business interests, though he con- 
siders that his princi])al business has beeji as a stockraiser. As a 
citizen he has evidenced a commendable public spirit which has made 
him always quick to respond to any appeal on behalf of movements 
for the general good. Fraternally he affiliates with the Masons, 
being a member of Tulare Lodse, F. & A. M., and having received 
the chapter and commandery degrees. He holds membership also 
in the local organization of the Woodmen of the World. 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 877 

111 1889 Mr. ilayes inarried Miss Faiiuie Fieldiug, of Marysville, 
Cal., and they have four children, Mayo, Mario, Carroll and Austin, 
all students in the public schools. 



EDWARD E. BUSH 

A pioneer and leadei' in many fields of industry in Kings county, 
and one who has won for himself an enviable record for industry 
and integrity here, is Edward E. Bush, who was born at Waukoii, 
Allamakee county, Iowa, June 25, 1859, son of Moses D. Bush, whose 
name is associated with the history of pioneer industries in this 
region. 

Moses D. Bush was liorn on a farm l)eside the Hudson river 
in the state of New York. When but nine years of age he was or- 
phaned and became self-su[iporting, working on a farm, where he 
grew up, and experiencing many hardsliijis which fitted him for his 
subsequent career as a pioneer. While yet young lie went to the 
village of Chicago and conducted a boarding house, becoming the 
owner of a tract of a hundred and sixty acres upon which the house 
stood. Disposing of that interest he returned to New York and 
was marriecl to Emily. E. Randall, witli whom he went to Allamakee 
county, Iowa, where he engaged in farming and practiced surveying, 
assisting in running the boundary line between Minnesota and Iowa. 
In 1864 he brouglit liis family to California liy the overland I'oute, 
and, locating at San Jose, ojjerated a small foundry there for about 
three years. He then sold it and later came to Kings county, where 
he took up land that is now a part of the site of Lemoore. This was 
a quarter-section, and when he settled here there was but one house 
between his and Visalia. He later sold the ranch to Lee Moore, 
for whom the town was named. 

Wlien Moses D. Bush came to Kings county it was sparsely set- 
tled, there being only about twenty-five peojile living there, among 
tliem lieing Uncle Dan Rhoades, Justin and Jonathan Esrey, who 
were following stockraising. In the Irain were Samuel Wi-iglit and 
II. P. Bicknell and their families, who settled on government hind 
and started to make homes; they suffered many trials, being coni- 
])elled to go to Gilroy and haul tlieir j^rovisions, as the stocki-aisers 
were opposed to them and refused to sell them meat or food of any 
kind. He was most optimistic as to the country's future and induced 
many friends to settle in what is now Kings county, giving them 
shelter and food and dividing his provisions with them. Geese and 
ducks were plentiful, and at one time Mr. Bush and his son were 
able to take eighteen hundred pounds to Gilroy, where they sold 



878 TULARE AND KTXTiS COUXTIES 

tlieni at $1.25 per pound. They also operated a ferry boat at-ross 
the lake, a distance of seven miles. He and a few others originated 
the first ditch hereabouts, taking water from Kings river, and he 
was one of the promoters of the Lower Kings Eiver Ditch Co. and 
helped to dig its ditch with his own hands, taking in payment for his 
labor stock in that public utility. In 1879 he moved to a tract of 
four hundred acres, four miles south of Ilauford, thus becoming a 
pioneer farmer and dairyman in the Lakeside district. In 1884 he 
sold his farm and took up his residence in Hanford, where he died 
November 16, 1898, aged seventy-six. He was a Democrat and 
held several public offices, and those still surviving who knew him 
are ever ready to praise his business acumen, his honesty and his 
generosity. His widow is passing her declining days with her 
son, Edward E. She and her husband were members of the Ad- 
ventist church. 

Edward E. Bush was a young boy when brought to Kings 
county and had had meager educational advantages. He was obliged 
to walk five miles to school, through herds of cattle, and he aided 
materially in the improvement of the home place. While still quite 
young he and his brother worked for Mr. Atwell on a small steam- 
boat, hauling hogs from Atwell 's Island, now Alpaugh, across where 
Corcoran now stands, and landing at Buzzards Roost, now "Waukena. 
In 1881, when twenty-two, he liecame an inde]ipndent farmer, hut the 
next year ran a small livery business in Hanford, and l)y 1891) the 
enterprise was increased to such an extent that he sold at a gratify 
ing profit; since then he has devoted his energies almost entirely to 
real estate. He has been materially helpful in many directions toward 
forwarding movements for the prosperity of Hanford. and was in- 
strmnental in procuring the extension of the Santa Fe railroad from 
Fresno to the Kern county line. In 1889 he started the Del Monte 
Vineyard Co., which put one hundred and sixty acres under vines 
and trees, and the next year the Banner Vineyard Co., which, to- 
gether with the former vineyard, made a tract of three lumdred and 
twenty acres, and this he sold within a few months. Soon after he 
bought the Grangeville vineyard of a hundred and sixty acres, planted 
it to vines and sold it in the second year. Meantime he bought a 
section of land of Foster Brothers, half of which he put to vines and 
sold to P. McRae, planting the other half in 1891, and this he sold to 
the Armona Orchard & Vineyard Co. In the fall of the latter year he 
organized the Silver Bow A'ineyard Co. at Butte, Mont., and sold two 
hundred and forty acres of it to residents of Butte, Mont., tiio follow- 
ing spring selling to other residents there a half section which he 
had set to prunes and peaches and which is known as the ]\lo!itana 
Orchard. In 1890 he bought and platted the Reddingion Addition of 
fortv lots in Hanford, and a little later bought twentv acres more 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIP^S 879 

in tlie northern section of the town and phitted half of that; since 
tlien he lias observed these purcliases develop into the city's most 
exclusive residence district. About the same time he bonnlit another 
twenty acres of land in Hanford, which he sold in one liody. 

As Mr. Bush was a pioneer in fruits and vines, so was he also 
a pioneer in the oil industry. Soon after 1890 his attention was 
directed to oil possibilities, and in 1896 he organized the Consolidated 
Oil & Development Co., cai)italized at $5(),(MK), which sunk a well in 
the Kroyenhagen district and found oil, but not in paying quantities. 
Next he organized the Caribou Oil Co. in the Coalinga district with 
a like capital, became its superintendent and manager, and with C. 
C. and AV. A. Spinks bought a section of land, a part of which was 
sold to the Peerless Oil Co., eighty acres to the Merced Oil Co., and 
eighty to the Great Northern Oil Co. Five wells on land still owned 
by the original c(uupany yield a good ainuuil income. In the Kern 
river country he organized the Provident Oil Co., capitalized at $200,- 
000, developed sixty acres in oil and suspended operations owing to 
cheap oil. He organized also the McFadden Oil & Mining Co., with 
a capital stock of $100,000, and sunk a well which, though operations 
were suspended, is still the property of the company. In both of 
these comjjanies Mr. Bush owns a large block of stock. A larger 
enterprise of Mr. Bush's was the Del Rey Oil Co. Its capital' was 
$1,000,000; of its four hundred acres, forty are in the heart of the 
Kern river field, seven producing wells being sunk under the super- 
intendence and management of Mr. Bush, who still owns stock in 
the company, as well as two hundred and forty acres of undeveloped 
lands in that district. In 1898 he organized the Del Monte Coal Co., 
which developed coal lands in this part of the county, but suspended 
operations because of exorbitant ship]iing charges. 

Of the Hanford Abstract Co., which was organized with a cash 
cai)ital of $10,000, Mr. Bush has been superintendent and manager 
since Noveml)er, 1901, owning a conti'olling interest in the stock. 
With four stockholders he organized the Hanford Gas & Power Co., 
of wdiich he is secretary and general manager; their plant is one of 
the finest of its kind in the state, costing .$60,000, and to date (1913) 
has more than doubled tlie investment price. In the fall of 1892 Air. 
Bush was one of the most enthusiastic promoters of the creation of 
Kings county from Tulare, giving generously of his money and time 
to that end, and he was one of the commissioners on organization 
nppointed by (Jovernor Markham. He has been directly concerned 
with most of the improvements which have tnai-ked the growth of 
Hanford fi-oni a village to a thriving industrial community. He was 
interested in the sugai' beet industry and the erection of the $1,000,- 
001) factory at Corcoran, which means, when plans materialize for 
(iperalion b>' projier financing, one of the greatest things for the 



880 TULARE AXD KlX(iS COUNTIES 

advancement and prosperity of the farmers in Kings county. He 
was one of the organizers of the Guarantee Land & Investment Co., 
which com|)any ))iirchased eight thousand acres of land l)etween (\)r- 
coran and llanford, now l)eiug (h_^vehjped for colonization. 

Politically Mr. Bush is a Democrat. Though never an office 
seeker, he has been secretary of the County Central Committee and 
a delegate to the conventions and was one of the presidential electors 
on the Democratic ticket in 1908. Fraternally he affiliates with the Odd 
Fellows, the Knights of Pythias and the Foresters. Mr. Bush mar- 
I'ied in Kings county December 21, 1884, Miss Emma L. Byrd, wlio 
was boi^n in California, and they have four children : Ruby Pearl, 
wife of Tx. M. Wilson; Clarence E. ; Moses L\anan; and Grover L. 



DAVID F. CARTER 

It was in Platte county, Iowa, that David F. Carter was horn in 
May, 1852, a son of William F. and Frances M. (Hill) Carter. His 
father, a farmer, was a native of Kentucky, and his mother was liorn 
in Tennessee. They had eleven children: Sarah A., Marion F.. James 
L., Mary, Vicia J., William P., Joseph 0., John P., David F., Colum- 
bus G. and Amanda. Sarah became the wife of Joseph (). Lands- 
downe, has l)()rne him eight children, and they live in Visalia. Marion 
F. married Elsie Kent, of Visalia, and theii' two children are attend- 
ing high school in that city. James L. married Elizabeth Sti'awn 
and their home is at Visalia. Mary married Joseph Ray and has 
borne him a son named Oliver. Vicia J. is also married. William 
P., of Lindsay, married Sallie Sherman. Joseph 0. nuiriicd ^liss 
Vickery and lives at Three Rivers. John P. married Cenio Johnson 
and lives in North Dakota, where he is principal of a school. Colum- 
bus G. is dead. Amanda married Newton Kent. David F. married 
Elizabeth Reaves, and she bore him seven children: Frank, JjuIu, 
Albert, Joseph 0., Ora and Delia, and one that died in infancy. Frank 
married Elsie Smith, and they and their two children reside at Reed- 
ley, Fresno county. Albert has devoted himself to educational work 
and his wife, formerly Miss Grimsy, is teaching at Porterville. He 
has served as a member of the board of education and is now princi- 
pal of a night school and will graduate in law from the Hastings 
law school in 1913. He was for four years a student at the normal 
■school at San Jose. Joseph 0. is married. Ora married William 
Janes, a newspaper man at Taft, Cal., and has three children. Delia 
married Byron Allen, a well-known stockman, and lives at Visalia. 

In 1870 Mr. Carter came to California from Iowa, crossing the 
plains with an emigrant train. For a time he lived at TTill's Ferry 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 881 

on tlie San Joaquin river and was engaged in farming and in driving 
a ten-mule team in freighting. He has lived in Tulare county since 
1872. After following stockraising for a time he went into the lime 
business, in which he was successful, furnishing this necessity for 
most of the public buildings in the county. He located in Lemon 
Cove in 187(i and in 1878 was instrumental in establishing a postofifice 
there, of which he was in charge as postmaster for fourteen years. 
He was for a time prominent in the sheej) liusiness, at one time own- 
ing twenty-one thousand head. One of his transactions in sheep, 
with which he made a large profit on thirty-seven hundred sheep 
wliich he liought at Tulare, brought liim to the attention of sheei) men 
tlirougliout the country. Finally he sold his sheep for $10,000 and 
iuvesled his money in cattle. He formerly ran his sheep in the 
mountains, but his cattle business centers at his ranch at Three 
Rivers. He was for a time the owner of a lemon oi'cliard at Lemon 
Cove. He has latterly given his altention to the laying of cement 
pipe and his operations in connection with Mountain \'iew ranch are 
well known to all his fellow citizens. Politically he is a Democrat. 
He is a member of the Masonic fraternity. His interest in education 
has impelled him to accept the offices of school trustee, director ot 
schools and clerk of the board of education. 



JOHN H. HINE 

In the struggle for success in which John H. Mine was for many 
years putting forth his efforts no one was more helpful and proved a 
mightier force in assisting him to gain prosperity than his estimable 
wife and helpmeet, and they are now making their home in Rich- 
mond, enjoying the fruits of their hard labor. Mr. Hine was born 
in North Carolina, in 18()6, the son of John H. Hine, Sr., the latter 
of whom was a jtrogressive fruit grower iji California and is now 
making his home in Tulare county. AVhen John H., Jr., was very 
young he was taken by his parents to Missouri, where the family 
lived until 1885, and there the boy began his education in the public 
schools. His active career began as a helper on his father's ranch. 
and there he remained until he was twenty-two years of age, when 
he mari'ied and settled on land which is now included in his extensive 
farm of ninety acres. Aided by his wife, he embarked extensively 
in general farming, growing fruit in large (juantities and raising con- 
siderable stock for the market. As a citizen he has always been help- 
ful to all good interests of the community, and in his i)olitics he is 
inclined to be independent. Fraternally lie affiliates with the Wood- 
men of tlie AVorld and tlii' Woodcraft Order. 



882 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

The marriage of Mr. Hine united him witli Mrs. Mary E. Hill, a 
native of Nebraska, and together they have since faced many hard- 
shijjs and reverses which they have bravely overcome with united 
forces, and liave seen much of the growth and development of the 
great agricultural interests of Tulare county, witnessing many of 
the changes which have marked its progress from a primitive condi- 
tion to its present excellent status. Before her marriage Mrs. Hine 
had conducted a small hotel in Dinuba, but she rented it for two 
years after marrying and then sold it at a good profit. She is an 
excellent example of the rare woman who unselfishly shares the bur- 
den of life's responsibilities with her husband, and they justly merit 
the well-earned rest they are now taking, for they are renting their 
ranch and making their home near Richmond, surrounded by many 
friends. 



WILLIAM H. MILLER, M. D. 

Dr. Miller was educated in the common schools near his birth- 
place in Illinois and at Aulmrn, Ind., and was graduated from the 
medical department of tlie University of Illinois with the M. D. de- 
gree in 1886. After a year's practice in Chicago he went to Dakota, 
where he remained two years, until he came to California. He 
opened an office in Hanford in 1889 and has since built up a very 
successful general practice. He served as health o.fficer of the city, 
and was surgeon for the Southern Pacific Railroad until he resigned 
because of the demands of his private practice. As a member of the 
California State Medical Society and through other affiliations he 
keeps in touch with the profession. 

Inclination has led Dr. Miller to take an interest in ranching 
and in dairying, and during the past seven years he has develojjed 
thirty-five acres, six miles south of Hanford, into one of the most 
attractive homesteads in this part of the county. He has three 
hundred and twenty acres also on Mill creek, east and south of Han- 
ford, between that city and Tulare, which is devoted to dairy ]iur- 
poses. It is irrigated by means of a twenty horsepower electric 
motor and two ten-inch wells which produce fifteen hundred gallons 
of water per minute. One hundred and sixty acres of the ])ro]ierty 
is imder alfalfa, and the rest is given over to grain. He has a 
dairy of forty-five Holstein cows. All in all, this is one of the liest 
proi^erties of its kind in the vicinity. Too busy otherwise to give 
personal attention to its management, he leases it on shares. His 
house in Hanford, which he erected in 1901 with a view to making 
it a suitable residence for this climate, is one of the model homes of 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 883 

tliat eity. It is of l)riok. witli doultlo walls, separated by open spaces, 
aiul is surrounded l)y beautiful park-like grounds in wliieli lie has 
planted many trees. 

Fraternally Dr. Miller aftiliates with the Woodmen of the World, 
l)eing a member of the llanford lodge of that order. In a public- 
spirited way he has been a factor in the building up of the town, 
whose citizens recognize in liim one willing, so far as he is able, to con- 
tribute to the general good. 



ASBURY C. RANEY 

It was in Missouri that Asbury C. Raney was liorn January 12, 
]W0. Reared and educated there, he made his home in that state 
until 1884. In that year, when he was twenty-four years old, he 
came to California and during the ensuing three years lived in Lake 
count \'. In October, 1887, he drove down to Tulare county in a 
])rairie schooner, stopping at Grangeville. He entered government 
land on the plains near Huron, Fresno county, and after perfecting 
his title to it eventually sold it. For some time he was in the em- 
ploy of others on farms, besides which he did considerable teaming, 
and for nine years he worked on harvesters. In November, 1890, 
he bought thirty acres of land five miles and a half northwest of 
Hanford, of which twenty-two acres are in vines and about six acres 
in orchard, the Italance of the tract being liis home site. Later he 
])urchased forty acres near Orosi, in the orange belt in Tulare county, 
and this he devotes to general crops. 

In 1885 Mr. Raney married Berintha Kern, a native of Missouri, 
and they have one son, Teddy Roosevelt Raney, born in xVpril, 1903, 
now a student in the i)ublic school near his home. Socially Mr. 
Raney affiliates with the Woodmen of the World. Politically he 
entertains progressive ideas and is devoted to the develo])ment of 
his district and county and to the best interests of the people of the 
country at large. 



WILLIAM RIVERS 

One of the enterprising and successful dairymen of Visalia is 
William Rivers, whose establishment is on Goshen avenue. Bereft 
of a father's care at a very early age, he found it necessary to earn 
his own way when he was (juite young, and it is largely to his credit 



884 TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 

that be has reached his present eomi'urtahle state, having acquired 
pro]3erty and becoming the proprietor of a well-paying business. 

Mr. Rivers was born in Joliet, III., August 7, 1872, son of 
William and Mary (Miller) Rivers, and was but fifteen years of age 
when brought to California by his motlier. He remained with his 
family on the small farm near Goshen, where they had settled, for 
about nine years, coming to his i)resent place in Yisalia January 1, 
1911. Witli a ])artner, James Butler, he farms three thousand acres 
of land, lin\ iiig three Imndred and fifty acres planted to alfalfa, and 
they e.xpect to have a thousand acres devoted to that crop in the 
course of three years or less. Seveuty acres are in vineyard and 
three hundred in Egyptian corn. The land produces half a ton of 
dried raisin grapes to the acre, or a ton and a half of wine grapes 
to the acre. They have been successful in the raising of beef cattle, 
hogs and mules, and their stock, being exceptionally fine, commands 
ihe highest market price. 

Mr. Rivers was married May lli, 1;mj3, to Daisy Williams, a 
native of Kansas, whose family came to California in 1887, and she 
has borne him the following children: Lois, Irene, AVilliam, Jr., 
Ralph, Edith and Ray. He is identified with the Woodmeu of the 
World and with the Loyal Order of Moose. In his politics he is 
stanchly Republican, and the confidence which his townsmen repose 
in him is indicated by the fact that he has been a member of the 
County Central Committee for Tulare county and as such has ac- 
quitted himself with much ability. 

The niother of William Rivers, who is still living at Goshen, 
aged about sixty-five years, is one of those strong, courageous women 
who have done so much in aiding in the development of this territory. 
Her family consisted of ten children, viz.: Mrs. Frank Halstead. of 
Fresno county; Mrs. Arthur Mitchell, of Yisalia; Alice, wife of James 
Black, of Oaidand; Mollie; David; William, Jr.; Roy; John; James, 
and Ilarrv. 



JOHN EARLY SCOGGINS 

The Scoggins family of which John Early Scoggins is a member 
is of Scotch origin (the great-great-grandfather having been ban- 
ished from Scotland on account of religious j)ersecution, he being a 
Protestant in his faith), and many of its rejiresentatives in this coun- 
try inherit the sturdy traits of character of that excellent race. The 
father of John Llarly Scoggins was Dr. Franklin Scogeins and was a 
native of Tennessee, whence in 18,14 he set out for California, com- 
ing overland across the plains and enduring the untold hardships 



TULAKK AND KIN(iS COUNTIES 880 

and vicissitudes of tliat tedious jouruey. He was the fatlier of nine 
children, as follows: Noah H., David T., Vesta Tennessee, Jolin Rai'ly. 
Alice May, Nowton Jasper, Nettie, Tjcna and one child that died in 
infancy. 

In Yolo county, Cal., shortly after his i)are.iits liad arrived there, 
occurred the birth of John Early Scogi;ins, on June iT), 1S54-, and he 
tliere f>rew to a boy of twelve years, attending the schools of the 
vicinity and receiving careful and attentive training from his excel- 
lent i)arents. Tie then was taken by his parents to Vacaville, Solano 
county, and attended the Methoilist Episcopal College, there taking 
a preparatory course, after which he entered the State University 
at Oakland. His desire to complete a course was frustrated by the 
sickness of his father, which compelled him, after a year at the uni- 
versity, to relimiuish his studies and athletic activities and return 
home to take charge of his father's large fruit farm near ^^acaville. 
Witli his accustomed thoroughness in everything he undertook he 
learned the fruit business in its every phase, and in 1892 moved to 
Tulare count\ to take charge of the Grant Oak Fruit Ranch of four 
hundred and sixty acres near Farmersville. As manager of this 
fruit ranch he sliipjied out the first carload of green fruit from tliat 
jilace. thus eslalilishing himself as one of the pioneers in the fruit 
exporting business of the county. For thirteen years he continued 
as manager of this ranch and then became interested in fruit farming 
on a tract three miles southwest of Dinuba, where he still owns a 
well-improved forty-acre fruit and alfalfa ranch, five acres being- 
planted to peaches, twenty acres to grapes and the balance to alfalfa. 

Mr. Scoggins is a stanch Democrat in political belief, and, not- 
withstanding his large ranching interests, has found time to fill the 
office of member of the Democratic County Central Committee, I0 
which he has repeatedly been elected in Tulare county. In chui'ch 
associations he is a Seventh Day Adventist and has served on the 
association board for several years. On October 18, 1876, in YiM-ix 
valley, Mr. Scoggins was married to Miss Ida Oriia Decker, daughtei- 
of Mrs. I. L. Decker, who lives at Diamond, Cal., and to this union 
eight children were born, as follows: Ethel Ida, Mable Clair, Roy E., 
Adelbei't Ellis, Paul Elmon, Edith Lucile, Nellis Louise and Helen 
Merle, all of whom arc at present residing in Tulare county. Flthel 
Ida is the wife of Alva Leil)sher; Mable Clair is tlie wife of Charles R. 
Thompson, of Farmei'sville ; Paul Elmon is a minister in the Seventh 
Day Adventist Clmrcli, stationed at Tulare; and Roy E. is mcntioiicil 
fully in another part of this publication. 

The Decker family, of which Mrs. Scoggins is a member, are of 
old Colonial history, members having been among those brave i)eople 
who came in the Mayflowei- to Phnnouth, Mass. Her father, I. L. 
Decker. <'nm(> aci'oss the iilains in IS.')!), and it is an interesting fact 



886 TULAKE AND KINGS C"OrXTI?:S 

in the family memoirs to know that he was married on the way to 
California and took his bride to live in tlie Suisun valley. His death 
occurred in 1873, his wife still surviving and making her home, as 
above mentioned, at Diamond, Cal. 

In all of his interests, industrial, commercial, political or relig- 
ious, Mr. Scoggins has been ever an important factor for good and 
every emergency has found in him an active helper and a most gen- 
erous contrilmtor. A kind and thoughtful father, domestic in his 
tastes and loyal in his duties of citizenship, he has been most worthy 
of the honor and esteem which is accorded him by all. It is inter- 
esting to add that Mr. Scoggins has always evinced a great interest 
in athletics, having played first base with the Lone Stars team, and in 
1873 was a valued member of the team of the University of Cali- 
fornia. 



ROY E. SCOGGINS 

Inhei'ent qualities of an unusual character have qualified Roy E. 
Scoggins to fill tlie ]>rominent i)osition in tlie business world lie 
liolds. he being a member of a very old and well-known Scotch family 
on the paternal side, while in the maternal line he is a descendant of 
Mayflower ancestors of the Decker family. Mr. Scoggins' ingenuity 
has been evidenced liy his invention of the Hard Pan Renovator, a 
machine made /or the drilling of holes in which dynamite is ])laced 
for the blasting of hard pan. The machine is mounted on four wheels 
and is driven by means of an eight horsejiower gasoline engine; 
by means of this power the holes are driven into the hard pan mat- 
ter and into the holes thus made dynamite is placed and exploded, 
thus breaking the hard surface for several feet around and making 
the land, formerly so useless, very fertile and valuable for orange, 
peach or lemon trees, alfalfa or any deep-rooted plant. In partner- 
ship with his estimable father, John E. Scoggins (a sketch of whom 
ap])ears elsewhere in this volume). Mr. Scoggins is now operating 
three of these machines in the field, and they have built up a new 
and very ]ir()fital)le industry in the county. The machines are made 
at the Briscoe i\Ianufacturing Co., at Lindsay and Hanford, and the 
invention l)ids fair to liecome one of tlie most useful of the times. 

Mr. Scoggins was born in Colusa county in 1882, son of John 
Early and Ida O. (Decker) Scoggins. When he was fourteen years 
of age he came to Tulare and prepared for college at Healdsburg, 
where he entered and com]>leted his course with a good record. For 
some time he was employed on his father's ranch, and he then turned 
his attention to the carpenter's trade, which has been for many years 



TULAEE AND KINGS COUNTIES 887 

his eliief work. In 11)08 he married Miss Edith Jones, a native of 
Iowa, and they have a daughter, Oleta, who was two years old in 
1912. They make their home in Lindsay, and it has become the cen- 
ter of many ijleasant social gatherings, their host of friends always 
finding a most hospitable welcome there. 

Mr. Scoggins has never been actively interested in political work, 
but he has well-defined ideas on all questions of domestic economy 
and his public spirit has prompted him to respond generously to all 
reasonable demands on behalf of the community. He is an enter- 
lirising and successful citizen, numbered among those j'oung men of 
the state who have contributed the vigorous interest, inflexible will 
and indomitable courage to further interests, make larger attempts 
and luing about the prosperous conditions that exist at the present 
time, llis invention has proved not only a iiuaucial success to him 
and a source of gratification as well, but it has given to many the 
means of improving land wliich heretofore had been waste and unde- 
veloped. 



J. NEWTON YOUNG 

The Young family to which J. Newton Young belongs is one of 
the leading pioneer families of Visalia, having lived there since 1855, 
during which time many representatives of the family have become 
identified with its progress and development. Born at Visalia, Cal., 
at No. 600 South East street, which has been the family homestead 
for many years, J. Newton Young is the son of Newton and Mary 
(Price) Young, the former a native of Indiana, while Mrs. Young 
was born in AYales. The parents were married in Visalia, whence 
Mr. Young had come as a soldier to quiet disturbance incident to 
the Civil war. He was a private in Company I, and it was while 
serving in that capacity that he married. He was killed in a sawmill 
in the (xreat Forests bv a large log rolling on him on August L'4, 
1871. 

J. Newton Young was a jiosthumous child, his birth occuii-iug 
April L'4, 1872, just eight inontlis after his father's accidental death. 
He had a sister, Ida, who became the wife of J. B. Agnew, a seed- 
grower with place of business at No. 110 Market street, San Fj'an- 
cisco. The maternal grandfather of J. Newton Young was an old 
settler at Visalia. Tie built the old Visalia home and was identilied 
with much of the develoiunent of that place. He came with the 
Evans family from "Wales, that party comprising Samuel Evans, Sr., 
and his wife, .\nn Evans; John Price, Saiimcl Evans, Jr., and James 



888 TULARE AXD KIXGS C'OUXTIES 

Evans, and Mary Price. The last-named, who liecanie the wife of 
Newton Young, passed away at Visalia in 1909. 

J. Newton Young is now managing the Mary Young estate, which 
consisted of two hundred and forty acres and a dairy ranch, besides 
other property. He has farmed successfully, and during later years 
has invested in the oil industry at Lost Hills and Belle Ridge, in all 
of which interests he has met with signal success. He married Miss 
Maud Shuman of San Francisco, and they make their home in the 
cozy bungalow Mr. Young has Iniilt at No. 501) South Bridge street. 
Visalia. 



JAMES M. WELLS 

One who has achieved jirominence as a contractor and l)uilder 
tln-oughout the West and Northwest is James M. Wells, who was 
born at Lansing, Mich., April 4, 1855. He was there reared and 
educated and was instructed in the essentials and the niceties of the 
carriagemaker's trade. Thus he laid the foundation of the splendid 
knowledge of mechanics which has enabled him to win success in an- 
other tield of mechanical labor. He came to California in 1875, when 
he was in his twenty-first year, and worked at carriage-making, mill- 
wrightiug and carpentering in San Francisco, and also in Seattle, 
Wash., Portland, Ore., in Idaho and Montana, and in British Colum- 
bia. In his work in connection with the construction of fine build- 
ings he developed an exceptional ability for interior finishing in resi- 
dences and office structures of the first class, and eventually this note- 
worthy specialty brought him to the notice of a leading contractor 
in the neighborhood of Los Angeles, by whom he was employed, 
mostly at Long Beach, for three years. He gave attention solely to 
interiors, and he worked there eight years altogether, heli")ina' to erect 
and beautify many of the largest and finest buildings in that field 
of remarkable building operations. He came to Tulare county in 
1907 and boiight a forty-acre ranch just out of Tulare City, raw 
land which he improved with a residence, outbuildings and a modern 
pumping plant, setting out a family orchard and devoting himself 
princiiially to the growth of alfalfa. This pro]ierty he sold advan- 
tageously in 1910. 

For several years past Mr. Wells has given his attention mostly 
to contracting and building. Among the notable buildings he lias 
erected in Tulare City are the residences of Mr. Feltnig, Mr. Johns 
and Frank Moody, and in the county outside of that town he has 
built the ranch houses of Messrs. Ottaman, Wattenberg, Fry, Wol- 
cott and Miller, besides the Dr. Scroggs home and a fine concrete 



TULARE AND KINGS COUNTIES 



889 



l.lork house for Frank M. Adams. Oue of Mr. Wells' earlier ven ures 
was us a raui^er in Washington, where for some time he ran a large 
band of cattle over an extensive range. He was married in 190L 
to Miss Strong, a native of Indiana. 



ISAAC HENDERSON WARREN 

In C^oifee oountv, Tenn., Isaac Henderson Warren was born in 
October. isr,6, a son" of Thomas P. and Mary (Harris) Warren. His 
father lived to be seventv-tive years old, and his mother survives, m 
her seventv-first vear. They were natives of Tennessee, and it was 
at Ilillsboro in that state that the elder AVarren passed away in l.)Ob. 
Mr Warren married in his native state Miss Bobbie Wilhs, who also 
was born there. Her mother lived to be seventy-five years old, and 
John Willis, her father, attained to the same age ; one of her grand- 
mothers reached the advanced age of ninety-two years. After his 
marriao-e Mr. AVarren removed from Tennessee to Brownwood, 
Brown countv, Texas, where he farmed until he came to Tulare 
countv He bought fifteen acres of land near Tulare and has twelve 
acres "in vines, Muscat grapes' being his prin.'ipal crop. The remain- 
der of his land is a big chicken yard, he having about one hundred 
fine chickens. While he is interested in stock, he keeps only enough 

for his own use. 

To Isaac Henderson and Bobbie (Willis) Warren have been 
born six children: Willis, Oscar, Leasel, David, and Ira and Ima 
twins Willis is a salesman in a store at Collis; Oscar is einployed 
in a packing house; the others are attending school. Mr Warren 
is a member of the Baptist church. Politically he is an independent 
Democrat, and fraternally he affiliates with the Woodmen of the 
World He is in everv sense of the word a good citizen, sohcitous 
for the general welfare and helpful to all pul)li<- interests. 



.TOSHUA E. WEST 

or tlie enterprising haiidUM's of sululivisions at Visalia, Tulare 
county, none lias l)een more successful in recent years than Josliua 
E. West, of the firm of West & Wing. A native of the P.iue Grass 
Stale, Mr. West was born in Graves county, Ky., a son of Josei)h 
W^est.' The fatb.er came to California first in 1850, subsequently re- 
turning to Kentucky, and again came to the Pacific coast in 1S74. 
Josliua E. West, who was then (juite young, grew to inanliodd \u 



890 TULARE AXD KINGS COUNTIES 

Fresno coiuity and was edneated in the imblic school near his home. 
From an early age he was a valnable assistant to his father in the 
latter 's farming and stock-raising operations and in 1895 he engaged 
in Inisiness on his own acconnt by leasing four hundred acres of land 
near Fresno and devoting it to the production of grapes and fruit. 
There he operated until 1903, when he came to Tulare county as man- 
ager for the Robla-Lomas Cattle Comiiany, which had a range of 
ten thousand acres about twenty-two miles north of Visalia. There 
he had in charge neai-Iy two thousand cattle, the number having been 
kept up to eighteen hundred and fifty for quite a long time. Later 
he engaged in fattening cattle at the "\"isalia sugar factory, feeding 
them on the pulp of beets. It should be added that his business 
here comprised the buying, fattening and selling of cattle, and that 
he transacted it successfully wholly on his own account. In May, 
1911, he organized the real estate firm of West & AYing. 

In this last-mentioned business Mr. West's partner is William 
A. Wing, and they make a specialty of handling large tracts of land 
for subdi\isiou. A plat of twelve hundred acres east of Orosi they 
bought at an average price of $41.50 an acre, and after subdividing 
it tiiey sold it at $125 to $200 an acre. They also handled profitably 
a tract of eighteen hundred acres north of Orosi, nine hundred acres 
of which they |)latted in siibdivision and planted to oranges. In the 
last ten years Mr. West has seen orange land in Tulare county ad- 
vance in market value from $10 to $200 an acre, and he has wit- 
nessed a similar advance in property of other classes. 

Fraternally Mr. West atfiliatei^ with the Woodmen of the World. 
As a citizen he is very helpfully progressive and i)ulilic spirited. In 
November, 1901, he married Miss Eliza Freeman, a native of Fresno, 
whose father came to California with the pioneers. Mr. and ^frs. 
West have a son and daughter. Herbert and Marcella. 



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